Famous William F. Buckley Jr. Quotes
Up from Liberalism (1959); also quoted in The American Dissent : A Decade of Modern Conservatism (1966) by Jeffrey Peter Hart, p. 171 <br class="br">Variants: <br class="br">Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. <br class="br">As quoted in The Nastiest Things Ever Said about Democrats (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 93 <br class="br">Liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, but it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view. <br class="br">As quoted in his obituary in The TImes (28 February 2008) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3447250.ece.
There never was an age of conformity quite like this one, or a camaraderie quite like the Liberals'. <br class="br"> "Publisher's Statement", in the first issue of National Review (19 November 1955) http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/buckley200406290949.asp.
William F. Buckley Jr. Quotes about people
Source: Misattributed, P. J. O'Rourke, as quoted in Busted : Stone Cowboys, Narco-lords, and Washington's War on Drugs (2002) edited by Mike Gray.
A definition of what he meant when referring to "liberals"in Up from Liberalism (1959); as quoted in "An American original: appreciating Bill Buckley" by George Shadroui (2003) http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2003/an-american-original-appreciating-bill-buckley/.
The War On Drugs Is Lost (1995)
The War On Drugs Is Lost (1995)
Context: More people die every year as a result of the war against drugs than die from what we call, generically, overdosing. These fatalities include, perhaps most prominently, drug merchants who compete for commercial territory, but include also people who are robbed and killed by those desperate for money to buy the drug to which they have become addicted.
This is perhaps the moment to note that the pharmaceutical cost of cocaine and heroin is approximately 2 per cent of the street price of those drugs. Since a cocaine addict can spend as much as $1,000 per week to sustain his habit, he would need to come up with that $1,000. The approximate fencing cost of stolen goods is 80 per cent, so that to come up with $1,000 can require stealing $5,000 worth of jewels, cars, whatever. We can see that at free-market rates, $20 per week would provide the addict with the cocaine which, in this wartime drug situation, requires of him $1,000.
William F. Buckley Jr. Quotes
"Our Mission Statement" in National Review (19 November 1955).
Context: The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than "newness") and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity).
“One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.”
"It Didn't Work" http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley200602241451.asp in National Review Online (2006-02-24). <br class="br">Context: One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.... Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.<br>The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the Americans.
“I will not cede more power to the state.”
Up from Liberalism (1959).
Context: I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit. 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. That is a program of sorts, is it not? It is certainly program enough to keep conservatives busy, and liberals at bay. And the nation free.
"Who Did What?" in National Review (1 November 2005) http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley200511011324.asp. <br class="br">Context: When in 1951 I was inducted into the CIA as a deep cover agent, the procedures for disguising my affiliation and my work were unsmilingly comprehensive. It was three months before I was formally permitted to inform my wife what the real reason was for going to Mexico City to live. If, a year later, I had been apprehended, dosed with sodium pentothal, and forced to give out the names of everyone I knew in the CIA, I could have come up with exactly one name, that of my immediate boss (E. Howard Hunt, as it happened). In the passage of time one can indulge in idle talk on spook life. In 1980 I found myself seated next to the former president of Mexico at a ski-area restaurant. What, he asked amiably, had I done when I lived in Mexico? "I tried to undermine your regime, Mr. President." He thought this amusing, and that is all that it was, under the aspect of the heavens.<br>We have noticed that Valerie Plame Wilson has lived in Washington since 1997. Where she was before that is not disclosed by research facilities at my disposal. But even if she was safe in Washington when the identity of her employer was given out, it does not mean that her outing was without consequence. We do not know what dealings she might have been engaging in which are now interrupted or even made impossible.... In my case, it was 15 years after reentry into the secular world before my secret career in Mexico was blown, harming no one except perhaps some who might have been put off by my deception.
"Free Weeds" in National Review (29 June 2004).
Context: Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great.
The laws concerning marijuana aren't exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder.
But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating.
General rules based on individual victims are unwise.
And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend.
The War On Drugs Is Lost (1995)
Context: More people die every year as a result of the war against drugs than die from what we call, generically, overdosing. These fatalities include, perhaps most prominently, drug merchants who compete for commercial territory, but include also people who are robbed and killed by those desperate for money to buy the drug to which they have become addicted.
This is perhaps the moment to note that the pharmaceutical cost of cocaine and heroin is approximately 2 per cent of the street price of those drugs. Since a cocaine addict can spend as much as $1,000 per week to sustain his habit, he would need to come up with that $1,000. The approximate fencing cost of stolen goods is 80 per cent, so that to come up with $1,000 can require stealing $5,000 worth of jewels, cars, whatever. We can see that at free-market rates, $20 per week would provide the addict with the cocaine which, in this wartime drug situation, requires of him $1,000.
"Publisher's Statement", in the first issue of National Review (19 November 1955).
Context: Radical conservatives in this country have an interesting time of it, for when they are not being suppressed or mutilated by Liberals, they are being ignored or humiliated by a great many of those of the well-fed Right, whose ignorance and amorality have never been exaggerated for the same reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity.
There are, thank Heaven, the exceptions. There are those of generous impulse and a sincere desire to encourage a responsible dissent from the Liberal orthodoxy. And there are those who recognize that when all is said and done, the market place depends for a license to operate freely on the men who issue licenses — on the politicians. They recognize, therefore, that efficient getting and spending is itself impossible except in an atmosphere that encourages efficient getting and spending. And back of all political institutions there are moral and philosophical concepts, implicit or defined. Our political economy and our high-energy industry run on large, general principles, on ideas — not by day-to-day guess work, expedients and improvisations. Ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative; and the medium of such exchange is the printed word.
"Who Did What?" in National Review (1 November 2005) http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley200511011324.asp. <br class="br">Context: When in 1951 I was inducted into the CIA as a deep cover agent, the procedures for disguising my affiliation and my work were unsmilingly comprehensive. It was three months before I was formally permitted to inform my wife what the real reason was for going to Mexico City to live. If, a year later, I had been apprehended, dosed with sodium pentothal, and forced to give out the names of everyone I knew in the CIA, I could have come up with exactly one name, that of my immediate boss (E. Howard Hunt, as it happened). In the passage of time one can indulge in idle talk on spook life. In 1980 I found myself seated next to the former president of Mexico at a ski-area restaurant. What, he asked amiably, had I done when I lived in Mexico? "I tried to undermine your regime, Mr. President." He thought this amusing, and that is all that it was, under the aspect of the heavens.<br>We have noticed that Valerie Plame Wilson has lived in Washington since 1997. Where she was before that is not disclosed by research facilities at my disposal. But even if she was safe in Washington when the identity of her employer was given out, it does not mean that her outing was without consequence. We do not know what dealings she might have been engaging in which are now interrupted or even made impossible.... In my case, it was 15 years after reentry into the secular world before my secret career in Mexico was blown, harming no one except perhaps some who might have been put off by my deception.
“The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.”
Windfall : The End of the Affair (1992).
The War On Drugs Is Lost (1995)
The War On Drugs Is Lost (1995)
This appears to be a variant of a widely disseminated Republican joke with no published attribution of its authorship to Buckley. <br class="br">Mark Hatfield, as quoted in The Condition of Republicanism (1968) by Nick Thimmesch, p. 65 <br class="br">They told me if I voted for Goldwater we'd be at war in Vietnam in six months — and I did and we were. <br class="br">Anonymous voter, as quoted in It All Comes Back to Me Now : Character Portraits from the "Golden Apple" (2001) by William O'Shaughnessy, p. 85 <br class="br">Buckley did say this on the Firing Line episode "Vietnam: Pull Out? Stay In? Escalate?" According to the transcript here http://hoohila.stanford.edu/firingline/programView2.php?programID=22, he says "...if someone told me that if I voted for Goldwater, we would escalate the war, I did and we have." <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Variant: They told me if I voted for Goldwater in 1964, that we'd have more war and higher prices. Well, I did, and we do.
“Everything I do and say and the way I do and say it annoys me.”
As quoted in "William F. Buckley Jr., Rapier Wit Of the Right" in The Washington Post (28 February 2008) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022703901.html.
"Our Mission Statement" in National Review (19 November 1955) http://www.nationalreview.com/article/223549/our-mission-statement-william-f-buckley-jr.
On the Iraq war situation, as quoted at "Buckley: Bush Not A True Conservative" http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/22/eveningnews/main1826838.shtml at CBS News, (2006-07-22).
Let Us Talk of Many Things : The Collected Speeches (2000) ISBN-13: 978-0761525516 <br class="br">Referring to Richard M. Clurman (1924 - 1996), a journalist, editor and administrator best known for his long association with Time magazine. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1996/06/03/1996_06_03_056_TNY_CARDS_000376587
"Spare Thoughts on Saddam" http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmRjMzcyYjBkZTA0ZGQ4NzI4M2ZkOGNjMTVlNDA4MTU= in National Review Online (2006-12-29).
Responding to Gore Vidal's baiting language during debate over the 1968 Democratic National Committee riots on ABC News - YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYymnxoQnf8&t=50s
I couldn't think of anyone.
"On Writing Speedily", first published in The New York Times Book Review (1986); republished in Miles Gone By : A Literary Autobiography (2004), p. 405.
Editorial, National Review (1957-08-24).
“Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.”
As quoted in The Cynic's Lexicon : A Dictionary of Amoral Advice (1984) by Jonathon Green, p. 34.
"How Is It Possible to Believe in God?" on NPR Morning Edition (23 May 2005) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4656595.
As quoted at "Buckley: Bush Not A True Conservative" at CBS News, (2006-07-22).
“Government can't do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.”
As quoted in "Broken Government: Where the right went wrong," CNN (2006-11-03).
National Review, 16 January 1962 http://books.google.com/books?id=TjkQAAAAIAAJ&q=%22The+superstition+that+the+hounds+of+truth+will+rout+the+vermin+of+error+seems+like+a+fragment+of+Victorian+lace+quaint+but+too+brittle+to+be+lifted+out+of+the+showcase%22&pg=PA21#v=onepage
Listen the to actual quoted words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nf_bu-kBr4
1963 statement, as quoted in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes, p. 82
Meet the Press (1965), as quoted in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes, p. 82
The numbers cited in paraphrases of this quote often vary from 100 to 2000.
Unsourced variant: I would rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the 2000 members of the faculty of Harvard University.
Variant: I would rather be governed by the first two thousand people in the Boston telephone directory than by the two thousand people on the faculty of Harvard University.
Response when asked what he would do if he actually won the 1965 election for Mayor of New York, as quoted in "Conrad Black on William F. Buckley Jr." in National Post (27 February 2008) http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=338957.
“Buckley Heard By Tulane Unit”, John Roberts, Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), (April 22, 1971) p. 22
As quoted in The Book of Positive Quotations (2007) by John Cook.
The Jeweler’s Eye, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons (1968) p. 68
