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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.
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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
Face
Sight
Faces
Majority
Freedom
Necessary
Individual
Concerned
Flatter
Often
Lose
Minority
Order
Loses
Preserve
Government
Liberty
Minorities
Alone
Preserves
More quotes by William F. Buckley, Jr.
You cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
He was a conservative all right, but invariably he gave the impression that he was a conservative because he was surrounded by liberals that he had been a revolutionist if that had been required in order to be socially disruptive.
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.
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.
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.
All that is good is not embodied in the law and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws but it needs strong mores.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'
William F. Buckley, Jr.
When it is not possible to reason with holy warriors, it is necessary to immobilize them or crush them.
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.
Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
The police can't use clubs or gas or dogs. I suppose they will have to use poison ivy.
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.
I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.
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.
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.
Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Boredom is the deadliest poison.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
It had all the earmarks of a CIA operation the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target!
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.
