William F. Buckley Jr. Quotes

We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilisations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern.

I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston phone book than the faculty of Harvard University.

Forget the polls and remember the people.

Fearing the weakness of democracy, men have always sought safety in technocrats. But ... [we] have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down before the divine right of experts.

If populism means reducing the gap between the people and the elite, giving sovereignty - the fullness of sovereignty - back to the people, and making the job of representation really adhere to the protection of the interests represented, we embrace the title of populists.

I would sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.

The throne we honour is the people's choice.

I come from election, I come from the people. I owe gratitude to our people. I do everything for the good of the country and the people.

You need to mesh the voices of people with expertise and meritocracy.

And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?

In a rational society we would want our presidents to be teachers. In our actual society we insist they be cheerleaders.

Government, in the last analysis, is organized opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government.

People are voting for the kind of country they want to live in, and there are different views about what kind of country we should have.

I have just come out of an electoral experience with the people of my country in which I invited them to join me in a partnership for governance.

In any country, governance issues are there. Challenges are there, pressures are there. When multi-party coalitions take decisions, sometimes delays will be there. But that is what democracy is: it is beauty or it's challenge.

Giving people what they want isn't just good radio; it's also the right way to run a country.

People are what this election is all about.

Lincoln's leadership is based on a number of precepts, but my favorite one is that he acted in the name, and for the good, of the people.

There is a circus around politics. But if you think it is a game, then you forget what the purpose of politics actually is.

So I think democracy, in the long-term, in our countries will survive if it comes to be associated with leadership, will not survive if democracy plus media brings to us more and more followship rather than leadership.

Politicians fascinate because they constitute such a paradox; they are an elite that accomplishes mediocrity for the public good.

Even if we accept, as the basic tenet of true democracy, that one moron is equal to one genius, is it necessary to go a further step and hold that two morons are better than one genius?

Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.