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Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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William F. Buckley, Jr.
Age: 82 †
Born: 1925
Born: November 24
Died: 2008
Died: February 27
Journalist
Novelist
Politician
Television Presenter
Writer
New York City
New York
William F. Buckley Jr.
William Frank Buckley Jr.
William Frank Buckley
Jr.
William Frank Buckley
Become
Prohibitive
Approaches
Idealism
Costs
Cost
Approach
Fine
Reality
More quotes by William F. Buckley, Jr.
I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
People are beginning to wish that the voters had been given breathometer tests when they voted in the present government.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
As a businessman, Frank Lorenzo gives capitalism a bad name.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
A relatively small and eternally quarrelsome country in Western Europe, fountainhead of rationalist political manias, militarily impotent, historically inglorious during the past century, democratically bankrupt, Communist-infiltrated from top to bottom.
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.
The real threat, as seen by the ACLU, is that religious behavior might give secular behavior a bad name, and that is, surely, unconstitutional.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
They [Theodore White and Lou Harris] took turns weeping, and finally concluded that Rockefeller got the votes of everyone in California who is a Negro, a Jew, a Mexican, and a college graduate, while Goldwater got the votes of every millionaire. Which certainly makes California the land of opportunity.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
They told me if I voted for Goldwater, he would get us into a war in Vietnam. Well, I voted for Goldwater and that's what happened.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
What yells out at the US public . . . is the incandescent hypocrisy of so many people who, in the name of free speech, persecute its practitioners if their opinions are conservative.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Before there was Ronald Reagan there was Barry Goldwater, and before there was Barry, there was National Review , and before there was National Review there was Bill Buckley with a spark in his mind.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
I would 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.
One doesn't read Jane Austen one re-reads Jane Austen.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
The majority of the senior class of Vassar does not desire my company and I must confess, having read specimens of their thought and sentiments, that I do not desire the company of the majority of the senior class of Vassar.
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 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.