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Norman Mailer decocts matters of the first philosophical magnitude from an examination of his own ordure, and I am not talking about his books.

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
Books
Talking
Firsts
Mailer
Book
Norman
Matter
Magnitude
First
Examination
Philosophical
Matters

More quotes by William F. Buckley, Jr.

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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.
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Louis Kelso of San Francisco, a lawyer-economist, has for years felt that he has a radical answer to the problem.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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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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.
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Why does baloney avoid the grinder?
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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Nobody who's ever been to Gulag is a pacifist.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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I've always believed that conservatism is the politics of reality, and that reality ultimately asserts itself in a reasonably free society, in behalf of the conservative position.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Did you know that forty percent of the words used by Shakespeare were used by him only once?
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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Some of my instincts are reprehensible.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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If Bach is not in Heaven, I am not going!
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign.
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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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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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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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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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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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.