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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.

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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
Spark
Reagan
Sparks
Reviews
Bill
Goldwater
Bills
Barry
National
Ronald
Mind
Review

More quotes by William F. Buckley, Jr.

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Conservatives should be adamant about the need for the reappearance of Judeo-Christianity in the public square.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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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.
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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.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Decent people should ignore politics, if only they could be confident that politics would ignore them
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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One doesn't read Jane Austen one re-reads Jane Austen.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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All adventure is now reactionary.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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The duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world, and the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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Boredom is the deadliest poison.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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The principal sponsors of the terrorists are not religious fanatics. Palestine's Yasser Arafat, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and Syria's Assad family have made themselves the icons of Islamism despite the fact that they are well-known atheists who live un-Muslim lives and have persecuted unto death the Muslim movements in their countries.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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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.
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You cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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To buy very good wine nowadays requires only money. To serve it to your guests is a sign of fatigue.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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The Beatles are not merely awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music.
William F. Buckley, Jr.