"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).
William F. Buckley Jr.: Doing
William F. Buckley Jr. was American conservative author and commentator. Explore interesting quotes on doing.
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"Who Did What?" in National Review (1 November 2005) http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley200511011324.asp.
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.
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.
Up from Liberalism (1959); also quoted in The American Dissent : A Decade of Modern Conservatism (1966) by Jeffrey Peter Hart, p. 171
Variants:
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.
As quoted in The Nastiest Things Ever Said about Democrats (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 93
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.
As quoted in his obituary in The TImes (28 February 2008) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3447250.ece.
The War On Drugs Is Lost (1995)
“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.
“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).