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Quotes by John McCarthy

A declining institution often experiences survival of the unfittest.
– John McCarthy
A true intellectual is a man who, after reading a book and being convinced by its arguments, will shoot someone or, more likely, order someone shot.
– John McCarthy
Alas few socialists are either benevolent enough to work hard at these occupations out of benevolence or self-interested enough to work hard at them for money.
– John McCarthy
Amateur bureaucrats are often even worse than professional bureaucrats.
– John McCarthy
An excessive knowledge of Marxism is a sign of a misspent youth.
– John McCarthy
An extreme optimist is a man who believes that humanity will probably survive even if it doesn't take his advice.
– John McCarthy
As we have recently seen, the function of the anti-trust laws is to protect the poor little fellow with a mere $5 billion from being bullied by the big guy with $50 billion.
– John McCarthy
Ask not for whom the horn honks. It honks for thee.
– John McCarthy
Asking a critic to name his favorite book is like asking a butcher to name his favorite pig.
– John McCarthy
Both politicians and journalists face situations which strain their honesty and humanity. My opinion is that politicians on the average stand up somewhat better than journalists.
– John McCarthy
Clinton can say: in my industry 5/6 of the experienced men are unemployed.
– John McCarthy
Committing genocide on behalf of an institution generates greater loyalty to it than merely getting people fired from their jobs on its behalf.
– John McCarthy
Compassion is contempt with a human face.
– John McCarthy
Do you wish to do good for the Mexicans (Palestinians) or they merely a stick with which to beat the Americans (Jews)?
– John McCarthy
Do you wish to imprison the Native Americans in a re-invented primitive culture?
– John McCarthy
Don't try to talk anyone out of concentrating his hatred on Ayn Rand or any other dead person. It can't harm the dead. Diverted to a living person, it might actually do harm.
– John McCarthy
Foolishness is rarely a matter of lack of intelligence or even lack of information.
– John McCarthy
God did not design human beings in accordance with Christian principles, fascist principles, feminist principles, socialist principles, romantic principles, secular humanist priciples, vegetarian principles, deep environmentalist principles, biocentric principles, or libertarian principles. Any of these groups could have told God a thing or two.
– John McCarthy
Hard distinctions make bad philosophy.
– John McCarthy
Hardly anyone has noticed that in the Northern Hemisphere people stir their drinks counterclockwise, whereas the same people stir their drinks clockwise when visiting the Southern Hemisphere.
– John McCarthy
He divides up this subject the way a Chinese cook divides up a duck.
– John McCarthy
He has the first half of the Golden Rule down pat: Do unto others.
– John McCarthy
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
– John McCarthy
His ambition is to be the spider in the World Wide Web.
– John McCarthy
Honor among thieves is the ancestor of all honor.
– John McCarthy
I don't see as how this Marxist-Leninist is any different from any other Marxist-Leninist.
– John McCarthy
I mention this out of my customary helpfulness.
– John McCarthy
If a person can be said to have the wrong attitude, there is no need to pay attention to his arguments.
– John McCarthy
If I owned Marseilles and Hell, I'd rent out Marseilles and live in Hell.
– John McCarthy
If it doesn't work right, we can always try something else.
– John McCarthy
In human history, the desire for revenge and the desire for loot have often been closely associated.
– John McCarthy
In this book masculine pronouns embrace not only the feminine but also the robotic.
– John McCarthy
Inside of many liberals is a fascist struggling to get out.
– John McCarthy
It is said that man doesn't live by bread alone. Sometimes this is unfortunate, because people who cannot live by bread alone too often kill other people in consequence of the fights they get into.
– John McCarthy
It's just a pissing contest, but unfortunately the contestants never seem to run out of piss.
– John McCarthy
Language is froth on the surface of thought.
– John McCarthy
Measuring all costs in terms of energy is merely a religious exercise.
– John McCarthy
My hobby of not attending meetings about recycling saves more energy than your hobby of recycling.
– John McCarthy
My opinion is that he's a swindler and you're a sucker.
– John McCarthy
Never abandon a theory that explains something until you have a theory that explains more.
– John McCarthy
Of course, Third World leaders love you. By ascribing third world ills to First World sins, you absolve them of blame for their countries' failure to advance.
– John McCarthy
Oh, he's sincere all right. The question is: what is he sincere about?
– John McCarthy
Once a person has killed other people on behalf of an ideology, he becomes rather devoted to it.
– John McCarthy
People mourn when a person dies, but no-one mourns the billions of intestinal bacteria that his death dooms. Speciesism, I calls it.
– John McCarthy
Praising the Sandinistas while criticizing the Soviets is like loving kittens and deploring cats. Actually it's not such a nice kitty.
– John McCarthy
Proposals to forbid golf courses have about the same motivations as proposals to forbid skate boarding, although the rationalizations are different.
– John McCarthy
Self-righteousness has killed more people than smoking.
– John McCarthy
Slogans rarely convince the unconvinced. However, they do rally the troops already on your side.
– John McCarthy
Soccer riots kill at most tens. Intellectuals' ideological riots sometimes kill millions.
– John McCarthy
Suicidal terrorists may have short shelf lives.
– John McCarthy
The difference between a contemporary liberal and a socialist is that to a liberal the most beautiful word in the English language is 'forbidden', whereas to a socialist the most beautiful word is 'compulsory'.
– John McCarthy
The gentlemen of the press smell blood.
– John McCarthy
The last ten percent of any reform is the most difficult to achieve. Moreover, it is often harmful.
– John McCarthy
The new class struggle will pit the workers and the bosses against the others.
– John McCarthy
The peace advocates are more interested in beating the conservatives than in reaching agreement with the Soviets.
– John McCarthy
The peace movement is a great force for peace. Some of the world's most quarrelsome people act out their aggressions through the peace movement.
– John McCarthy
The SCLC draft has a whole mile of good intentions.
– John McCarthy
The slogan was 'Don't trust anyone over thirty'. Sixty years later the slogan became, 'Don't trust anyone over ninety'.
– John McCarthy
The squabbles among linguists remind me of a saying of my mother-in-law, a retired farmer's wife.When the chickens start cannibalizing one another, the only thing to do is to butcher the lot or sell them to someone else and start over.
– John McCarthy
There is only one thing more harmful to society than an elected official forgetting the promises he made in order to get elected; that's when he doesn't forget them.
– John McCarthy
This is not the first time my views on some topic have inspired in someone the desire to psychoanalyze me. Previous experience leads me to ask about your couch. Is it comfortable? Are its springs in good shape?
– John McCarthy
We modern Marxists regard socialism as a historically brief transitional stage between feudalism and capitalism, necessary only in backward countries.
– John McCarthy
When I hear the word Heidegger I reach for my axe. He may have swiped it.
– John McCarthy
When I see a slippery slope, my instinct is to build a terrace.
– John McCarthy
When thugs by nature meet thugs by political conviction, 5-0 is not surprising.
– John McCarthy
Whenever I hear a dog continually barking, my reaction is one of relief-that it's not my dog making all that racket and inciting the neighbors to call the police.
– John McCarthy
With no more than six levels of misquotation, any statement can be made to say whatever you wish.
– John McCarthy
Would you vegetarians like a rule that food stamps cannot be used to purchase products containing meat? Would you vegans like to also forbid their use to purchase eggs, fish or milk products? Some years ago some of my fellow conservatives grumbled about the purchase of filet mignon with food stamps, but their motives were economic, and they were easily beaten down with the usual charges of heartlessness. Maybe you vegetarians would have better luck, since your hearts are pure.
– John McCarthy
You don't want to examine the basis of your computer's morality any more than you want to see sausage being made.
– John McCarthy
You have to transcend your class interests. Since you belong to the class from which bureaucrats are recruited, you naturally favor making people deal with bureaucracies.
– John McCarthy
Young men can readily be roused to fight. If the institutions of the United States and of California didn't prevent it, the middle-aged men of Palo Alto and Menlo Park could readily get the teen agers of these cities to shoot at each other across San Francisquito Creek over the proper location of the Willow Road extension.
– John McCarthy
Young tyrants are more genocidal than old tyrants - with the exception of Khomeini.
– John McCarthy