William F. Buckley, Jr.

Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other people's freedom and security.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

All adventure is now reactionary.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other people's freedom and security.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than "newness") and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity).

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

The superstition that the hounds of truth will rout the vermin of error seems, like a fragment of Victorian lace, quaint, but too brittle to be lifted out of the showcase.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

Demand a recount.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

I am, I fully grant, a phenomenon, but not because of any speed in composition. I asked myself the other day, "Who else, on so many issues, has been so right so much of the time?" I couldn't think of anyone.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

I've always subconsciously looked out for the total Christian and when I found him he turned out to be a non-practicing Jew.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

Government can't do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

It was rumored, in 1946, that the hangman in Nuremberg adjusted the nooses of some of the condemned to magnify the pain of suffocation. Such sadism was not called for then and is not called for now. But if fornication is wrong, there is no denying that it can bring pleasure. The death of Saddam Hussein at rope's end brings a pleasure that is undeniable, and absolutely chaste in its provenance.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

I get satisfaction of three kinds. One is creating something, one is being paid for it and one is the feeling that I haven’t just been sitting on my ass all afternoon.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

Everything I do and say and the way I do and say it annoys me.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll nail you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

Treatment is not now available for almost half of those who would benefit from it. Yet we are willing to build more and more jails in which to isolate drug users even though at one-seventh the cost of building and maintaining jail space and pursuing, detaining, and prosecuting the drug user, we could subsidize commensurately effective medical care and psychological treatment.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

The cost of the drug war is many times more painful, in all its manifestations, than would be the licensing of drugs combined with intensive education of non-users and intensive education designed to warn those who experiment with drugs.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

Those who suffer from the abuse of drugs have themselves to blame for it. This does not mean that society is absolved from active concern for their plight. It does mean that their plight is subordinate to the plight of those citizens who do not experiment with drugs but whose life, liberty, and property are substantially affected by the illegalization of the drugs sought after by the minority.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.

It is outrageous to live in a society whose laws tolerate sending young people to life in prison because they grew, or distributed, a dozen ounces of marijuana. I would hope that the good offices of your vital profession would mobilize at least to protest such excesses of wartime zeal, the legal equivalent of a My Lai massacre. And perhaps proceed to recommend the legalization of the sale of most drugs, except to minors.

— William F. Buckley, Jr.