William F. Buckley Jr. Quotes

Did you know that forty percent of the words used by Shakespeare were used by him only once?

We love your adherence to democratic principles.

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.

...following Mrs. Roosevelt in search of irrationality was like following a burning fuse in search of an explosive.

He [Cassius Clay] became a Black Muslim, which is a pseudo-religion for unbright neurotics who feel the need to hate all white people.

No one since the Garden of Eden - which the serpent forsook in order to run for higher office - has imputed to politicians great purity of motive.

The more complicated and powerful the job, the more rudimentary the preparation for it.

I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Manhattan phone book than the entire faculty of Harvard.

Friendship is strengthened by...that which ever so lightly elevates us from the trough of self-concern and self-devotion.

As a businessman, Frank Lorenzo gives capitalism a bad name.

...the traces to the East haven been broken, the Republican party will never again be dominated by the editorial writers for the New York Herald Tribune. Free at last.

The real threat, as seen by the ACLU, is that religious behavior might give secular behavior a bad name, and that is, surely, unconstitutional.

Mr. Rockefeller is due to entertain munificently at breakfast, and make his pitch. My advice to one invited guest was: Order caviar, and then say No.

Boredom is the deadliest poison.

I find it easier to believe in God than to believe Hamlet was deduced from the molecular structure of a mutton chop.

The police can't use clubs or gas or dogs. I suppose they will have to use poison ivy.

It is not a sign of arrogance for the king to rule. That is what he is there for.

We view our atomic arsenal as proudly and as devotedly as any pioneer ever viewed his flintlock hanging over the mantel as his children slept, and dreamed.

Knee-jerk liberals and all the certified saints of sanctified humanism are quick to condemn this great and much-maligned Transylvanian statesman.

Everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common needle users, and on the buttock, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals.

All adventure is now reactionary.

Norman Mailer decocts matters of the first philosophical magnitude from an examination of his own ordure, and I am not talking about his books.

To buy very good wine nowadays requires only money. To serve it to your guests is a sign of fatigue.

Some of my instincts are reprehensible.

The Beatles are not merely awful. I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are godawful.

If Bach is not in Heaven, I am not going!

Reagan is both too fatalistic and too modest to be a crudaser. He doesn't have that darkness around the eyes of a George McGovern.

Why does baloney avoid the grinder?

It seems to me that the idea traditionally defended of endeavoring to maintain existing ethnic balances simply doesn't work any more.

I had much more fun criticizing than praising.

Stick me in a confessional and ask the question: Sir, if you had the authority, would you forbid smoking in America? You'd get a solemn and contrite, Yes.

Self-control is one of the most exhilarating of pleasures.

I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.

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

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

I grew up, as reported, in a large family of Catholics without even a decent ration of tentativeness among the lot of us about our religious faith.

[The] act of gratitude is nowadays is probably more often neglected than overdone.

One doesn't read Jane Austen; one re-reads Jane Austen.

Louis Kelso of San Francisco, a lawyer-economist, has for years felt that he has a radical answer to the problem.

Kennedy after all has lots of glamour - Gregory Peck with an atom bomb in his holster.

Earlier this month the State Department gave the umpteenth performance of its popular play, Please Tread on Me, with Ceylon as guest star, and the usual cast.

Human progress is achieved by taking exact measurements.

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

She [Ayn Rand] had to declare that....altruism was despicable, that only self-interest is good and noble. (About Ayn Rand)

[D]emocracy can itself be as tyrannical as a dictatorship, since it is the extent, not the source, of government power that impinges on freedom."-William F Buckley

For people who like that sort of thing, that's the sort of thing they like.