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23 Eugene McCarthy Quotes

Eugene McCarthy shares plain-spoken critiques of bureaucracy, leadership, and democracy that resonate with readers craving clear, honest insight.

Eugene McCarthy quotes

  1. Have you ever tried to split sawdust?

    #1

  2. The two-party system has given this country the war of Lyndon Johnson, the Watergate of Nixon, and the incompetence of Carter. Saying we should keep the two-party system simply because it is working is like saying the Titanic voyage was a success because a few people survived on life-rafts.

    #2

  3. The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

    #3

  4. There is only one thing to do - take it to the country!

    #4

  5. We do not need presidents who are bigger than the country, but rather ones who speak for it and support it.

    #5

  6. I'm kind of an accidental instrument, really, through which I hope that the judgment and the will of this nation can be expressed.

    #6

  7. The maple tree that night Without a wind or rain Let go its leaves Because its time had come.

    #7

  8. Now it is certain. There is no magic stone. No secret to be found. One must go With the mind's winnowed learning.

    #8

  9. The glove has been thrown to the ground, The last choice of weapons made. A book for one thought. A poem for one line. A line for one word.

    #9

  10. 'Broken things are powerful.' Things about to break are stronger still. The last shot from the brittle bow is truest.

    #10

  11. I have left Act I, for involution And Act II. There, mired in complexity I cannot write Act III.

    #11

  12. 'Lament for an Aging Politician'

    #12

  13. As long as the differences and diversities of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation, and for the recognition of differences.

    #13

  14. Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.

    #14

  15. In politics one may remain aloof and become irrelavent or get involved and get corrupted.

    #15

  16. I can still smell the tear gas in the Hilton Hotel.

    #16

  17. It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember.

    #17

  18. Nixon is the kind of guy who, if you were drowning twenty feet from shore, would throw you a fifteen-foot rope.

    #18

  19. No man could be equipped for the presidency if he has never been tempted by one of the seven cardinal sins.

    #19

  20. One thing about a pig, he thinks he's warm if his nose is warm. I saw a bunch of pigs one time that had frozen together in a rosette, each one's nose tucked under the rump of the one in front. We have a lot of pigs in politics.

    #20

  21. The Senate is the last primitive society in the world. We still worship the elders of the tribe and honor the territorial imperative.

    #21

  22. This is, I say, the time for all good men not to go to the aid of their party, but to come to the aid of their country.

    #22

  23. The function of liberal Republicans is to shoot the wounded after the battle.

    #23