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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
Faces
Majority
Freedom
Necessary
Individual
Concerned
Flatter
Often
Lose
Minority
Order
Loses
Preserve
Government
Liberty
Minorities
Alone
Preserves
Face
Sight
More quotes by 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.
I had much more fun criticizing than praising.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Industry is the enemy of melancholy
William F. Buckley, Jr.
If Bach is not in Heaven, I am not going!
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.
Socialize the individual's surplus and you socialize his spirit and creativeness.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
The more complicated and powerful the job, the more rudimentary the preparation for it.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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.
The amount of money and of legal energy being given to prosecute hundreds of thousands of Americans who are caught with a few ounces of marijuana makes no sense.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
History is but the polemics of the victor.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Not everything that is legal is reputable.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Now it is one thing to say I say it that people shouldn't consume psychoactive drugs. It is entirely something else to condone marijuana laws, the application of which resulted, in 1995, in the arrest of 588,963 Americans. Why are we so afraid to inform ourselves on the question?
William F. Buckley, Jr.
[The] act of gratitude is nowadays is probably more often neglected than overdone.
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.
Marijuana is not much more difficult to obtain than beer. The reason for this is that a liquor store selling beer to a minor stands to lose its liquor license. Marijuana salesmen don't have expensive overheads, and so are not easily punished.
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.
Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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.
Only government can cause inflation, preserve monopoly, and punish enterprise.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
... to say that the CIA and the KGB engage in similar practices is the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes an old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the path of a hurtling bus: on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing old ladies around.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
