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"Unfortunately, the media, which are not at all reluctant to act in their own self-interest, have succeeded in equating reform in the public mind with further restrictions on just about everyone else's freedom of political speech."
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"It's not that the creative act and the critical act are simultaneous. It's more like you blurt something out and then analyze it."
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"One of the reasons why so few of us ever act, instead of react, is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses."

"One of the disadvantages of being a patrician is that occasionally you're obliged to act like one."

"And what's more I've got no need for anyone to tell me how to do it. I am not interested. You act how you want to and leave me alone to do my own thing."

"We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of anyone, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours."

"I grew up in the 1950s and '60s, when it was almost a holiday when a black act would go on Ed Sullivan."
Explore more quotes by James L. Buckley

"Unfortunately, in today's world we have to be reminded that the power of an oath derives from the fact that in it we ask God to bear witness to the promises we make with the implicit expectation that He will hold us accountable for the manner in which we honor them."

"They may then be willing to cast principled votes based on an educated understanding of the public interest in the face of polls suggesting that the public itself may have quite a different understanding of where its interest lies."

"This source of corruption, alas, is inherent in the democratic system itself, and it can only be controlled, if at all, by finding ways to encourage legislators to subordinate ambition to principle."

"In the last analysis, of course, an oath will encourage fidelity in office only to the degree that officeholders continue to believe that they cannot escape ultimate accountability for a breach of faith."

"As a consequence, the Court ruled that the limits on campaign spending violated the First Amendment, but it accepted the $1,000 limit on individual contributions on the ground that the need to avoid the appearance of corruption justified this limited constraint on speech."

"I had hoped that the current presidential campaign debates might educate the public as to what is really involved in the ongoing controversy over campaign financing."

"I am persuaded that in the case of elected officials, the overwhelming temptation is to conclude that it is more important for your constituents that you be reelected than that you deal honestly with them."

"It would seem, therefore, that this constitutional safeguard may no longer serve its original purpose, especially when, as we learned last year, some acts of perjury may now be acceptable - in this world, at least, if not the next."

"The Court made an exception, however, in the case of candidates contributing to their own campaigns because of the rather reasonable presumption that a candidate is incapable of corrupting himself."
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