Quotes from the late great conservative icon, William F. Buckley Jr.

You guys know I’m not the hero worshipping type, but if I was, William F. Buckley would be my Abacus.

“I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.”
— William F. Buckley Jr.

“The amount of money and of legal energy being given to prosecute hundreds of thousands of Americans who are caught with a few ounces of marijuana in their jeans simply makes no sense – the kindest way to put it. A sterner way to put it is that it is an outrage, an imposition on basic civil liberties and on the reasonable expenditure of social energy.”
— William F. Buckley Jr.

“Decent people should ignore politics, if only they could be confident that politics would ignore them” — William F. Buckley Jr.

“I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Manhattan phone book than the entire faculty of Harvard.” — William F. Buckley Jr.

“I would like to take you seriously but to do so would affront your intelligence. ”
— William F. Buckley Jr.

“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 peoples’ freedom and security.”
— 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 years.”
— William F. Buckley Jr.

“There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.” — William F. Buckley Jr.

“Conservatives should be adamant about the need for the reappearance of Judeo-Christianity in the public square.”
— William F. Buckley Jr.

“I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said” — William F. Buckley Jr.

“I find it easier to believe in God than to believe Hamlet was deduced from the molecular structure of a mutton chop.” — William F. Buckley Jr.

“Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.”
— William F. Buckley Jr.

“I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.”
— William F. Buckley Jr.

“The more complicated and powerful the job, the more rudimentary the preparation for it.” — 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.

“There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush. I don’t believe his successor would re-enunciate the words he used in his second inaugural address because they were too ambitious. So therefore I think his legacy is indecipherable.” — William F. Buckley Jr.

“A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling ‘Stop!” — William F. Buckley Jr.

“The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.” — William F. Buckley Jr.

“A good debater is not necessarily an effective vote-getter: you can find a hole in your opponent’s argument through which you could drive a coach and four ringing jingle bells all the way, and thrill at the crystallization of a truth wrung out from a bloody dialogue – which, however, may warm only you and your muse, while the smiling paralogist has in the meantime made votes by the tens of thousands.”
— William F. Buckley Jr.