William F. Buckley, Jr

The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house.

— William F. Buckley, Jr

They [Theodore White and Lou Harris] took turns weeping, and finally concluded that Rockefeller got the votes of everyone in California who…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

The real threat, as seen by the ACLU, is that religious behavior might give secular behavior a bad name, and that is,…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

It had all the earmarks of a CIA operation; the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target!

— William F. Buckley, Jr

The socialized state is to justice, order, and freedom what the Marquis de Sade is to love.

— William F. Buckley, Jr

We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

The superstition that the hounds of truth will rout the vermin of error seems, like a fragment of Victorian lace, quaint, but…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

We are, always, reminded of the old saw: What would happen if the Soviet Union took over the Sahara Desert? Answer: Nothing…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

Presley brought an excitement to singing, in part because rock and roll was greeted as his invention, but for other reasons not…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

A relatively small and eternally quarrelsome country in Western Europe, fountainhead of rationalist political manias, militarily impotent, historically inglorious during the past…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

Everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common needle users, and on the buttock, to prevent…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

To buy very good wine nowadays requires only money. To serve it to your guests is a sign of fatigue.

— William F. Buckley, Jr

France believes in armed intervention by America only when the intervention is in France to rescue France from occupation by other powers.

— William F. Buckley, Jr

Reagan is both too fatalistic and too modest to be a crudaser. He doesn't have that darkness around the eyes of a…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

If Bach is not in Heaven, I am not going!

— William F. Buckley, Jr

You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.

— William F. Buckley, Jr

I've always believed that conservatism is the politics of reality, and that reality ultimately asserts itself in a reasonably free society, in…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

...following Mrs. Roosevelt in search of irrationality was like following a burning fuse in search of an explosive.

— William F. Buckley, Jr

I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

[The] act of gratitude is nowadays is probably more often neglected than overdone.

— William F. Buckley, Jr

A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'

— William F. Buckley, Jr

If only the left hated crime as much as they hated hate.

— William F. Buckley, Jr

Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten…

— William F. Buckley, Jr

Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.

— William F. Buckley, Jr

It was rumored, in 1946, that the hangman in Nuremberg adjusted the nooses of some of the condemned to magnify the pain…

— William F. Buckley, Jr