Quote

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

William F. Buckley, Jr.

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Book
Harvard
First
Faculty
Would
Phone
People
Phones
Diversity
Entire
Rather
Manhattan
Firsts
Governed

More quotes by William F. Buckley, Jr.

Image
Norman Mailer decocts matters of the first philosophical magnitude from an examination of his own ordure, and I am not talking about his books.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
Christianity finds all its doctrines stated in the Bible, and Christianity denies no part, nor attempts to add anything to the Word of God.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
Did you know that forty percent of the words used by Shakespeare were used by him only once?
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
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.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
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.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
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.
Image
In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
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.
Image
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.
Image
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.
Image
Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
Old ladies photographed by CBS who announced that they would die of malnutrition if Reagan's bill were passed could probably have saved themselves their impending penury by the simple device of applying to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists for scale every time they were featured by Dan Rather or whoever.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
Conservatism is the tacit acknowledgement that all that is finally important in human experience is behind us that the crucial explorations have been undertaken, and that it is given to man to know what are the great truths that emerged from them.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
France believes in armed intervention by America only when the intervention is in France to rescue France from occupation by other powers.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
We are, always, reminded of the old saw: What would happen if the Soviet Union took over the Sahara Desert? Answer: Nothing for 50 years. After that there would be a shortage of sand.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
I had much more fun criticizing than praising.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
You cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
Knee-jerk liberals and all the certified saints of sanctified humanism are quick to condemn this great and much-maligned Transylvanian statesman.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Image
The police can't use clubs or gas or dogs. I suppose they will have to use poison ivy.
William F. Buckley, Jr.