Home > Work > Up from Liberalism
1 " A second marked characteristic of the Liberal in debate with the conservative is the tacit premise that debateis ridiculous....Many people shrink from arguments over facts because facts are tedious, because they require a formal familiarity with the subject under discussion, and because they can be ideologically dislocative. Many Liberals accept their opinions, ideas, and evaluations as others accept revealed truths. "
― William F. Buckley Jr. , Up from Liberalism
2 " I do not, in short, myself believe it is in the least bit undignified to confess to having been critically influenced in one's thinking by a teacher, or a faculty, or a book; but the accent these days is so strong on atomistic intellectual independence that to suggest such a thing is, as I have noted, highly inflammatory. "
3 " Though Marx’s proletariat may be somewhat better fed than it was a century ago, its individual members have made little if any progress toward that personal liberty and independence on which the dignity of man is founded. "
4 " The danger comes when a distrust of doctrinaire social systems eases over into a dissolute disregard for principle. A disregard for enduring principle delivers a society, eviscerated, over to the ideologists. "