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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.

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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
Live
Arrived
Mean
Ancestor
Voting
Never
Truths
Men
Yesterday
Booth
Life
Authority
Subservient
Wisdom
Obedient
Political
Ancestors

More quotes by William F. Buckley, Jr.

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Knee-jerk liberals and all the certified saints of sanctified humanism are quick to condemn this great and much-maligned Transylvanian statesman.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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Decent people should ignore politics, if only they could be confident that politics would ignore them
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One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians.
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.
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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.
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I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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The Beatles are not merely awful. I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are godawful.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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The socialized state is to justice, order, and freedom what the Marquis de Sade is to love.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Only government can cause inflation, preserve monopoly, and punish enterprise.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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People are beginning to wish that the voters had been given breathometer tests when they voted in the present government.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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He [Cassius Clay] became a Black Muslim, which is a pseudo-religion for unbright neurotics who feel the need to hate all white people.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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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.
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... 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.
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Bobby Kennedy and Nelson Rockefeller are having a row, ostensibly over the plight of New York's mentally retarded, a loose definition of which would include everyone in New York who voted for Bobby Kennedy or Nelson Rockefeller.
William F. Buckley, Jr.