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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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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
Stick
Sticks
Authority
Question
Contrite
Asks
Confessional
America
Forbid
Would
Solemn
Smoking

More quotes by William F. Buckley, Jr.

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I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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The more complicated and powerful the job, the more rudimentary the preparation for it.
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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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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I catch fire and find the reserves of courage and assertiveness to speak up. When that happens I get quite carried away. My blood gets hot my brow wet I become unbearably and unconscionably sarcastic and bellicose I am girded for a total showdown.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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It is not a sign of arrogance for the king to rule. That is what he is there for.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Presley brought an excitement to singing, in part because rock and roll was greeted as his invention, but for other reasons not so widely reflected on: Elvis Presley had the most beautiful singing voice of any human being on earth.
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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Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.
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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Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other people's freedom and security.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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A society is not 'free' merely because the freedoms the people are doing away with are those they voted at the last election to do without.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Friendship is strengthened by...that which ever so lightly elevates us from the trough of self-concern and self-devotion.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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We view our atomic arsenal as proudly and as devotedly as any pioneer ever viewed his flintlock hanging over the mantel as his children slept, and dreamed.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Not everything that is legal is reputable.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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It had all the earmarks of a CIA operation the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target!
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Socialize the individual's surplus and you socialize his spirit and creativeness.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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[The] act of gratitude is nowadays is probably more often neglected than overdone.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.