Eugene McCarthy Quotes:

An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

source: - Eugene J. McCarthy (2004). “Parting Shots from My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life”, p.109, Fulcrum Publishing

Topics: Liberty, Bureaucracy, Threat, Inefficiency, Threats To Liberty

Anything said three times in Washington becomes a fact.

source: - Source: www.foxnews.com

Topics: Three, Facts, Said

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.

source: - "Chicago Tribune" Newspaper, September 10, 1978.

Topics: Party, Two, People, Survived, Two Party System

War is indefensible on every grounds, military and economic and diplomatic and also on moral.

Topics: Military, War, Moral

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

Topics: Political, Honor, World, Territorial, Senate

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

source: - Eugene J. McCarthy (2004). “Parting Shots from My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life”, p.124, Fulcrum Publishing

Topics: People, Democracy, Might, Candidates

The polls show that 10 percent of the public are ready to vote for me even though they don't know I'm running. We hope that figure won't drop when they learn I'm in the race.

Topics: Running, Race, Vote, Vote For Me

If you're in the penaut business you learn to think small.

Topics: Thinking

A newspaper may somewhat arrogantly assert that it prints "all the news that's fit to print." But no newspaper yet has been moved to declare at the end of each edition, "That's the way it is," as Walter Cronkite does.

Topics: Media, Doe, News

You know when I first thought I might have a chance? When I realized that you could go into any bar in the country and insult Lyndon Johnson and nobody would punch you in the nose.

Topics: Country, Bars, Noses, American Politics

The difference between Carter and [Ted] Kennedy: Carter has this vague religion which he believes in strongly, while Kennedy has this strong religion which he believes in vaguely.

Topics: Strong, Believe, Differences, Ted Kennedy

Whatever is morally necessary must be made politically possible.

Topics: Made

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

source: - Eugene J. McCarthy (2004). “Parting Shots from My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life”, p.24, Fulcrum Publishing

Topics: Freedom, Differences, Long, Accommodations

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.

source: - Quoted in Washington Post, 12 Nov. 1967

Topics: Football, Smart, Thinking, Dumb Sports, Football Coach

The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency.

Topics: Liberty, Politics, Bureaucracy, Inefficiency

I would not want to put him in charge of snake control in Ireland.

Topics: Sarcastic, Snakes, Want

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

Topics: Men, Political, Sin

We don't declare war any more; we declare national defense.

Topics: War, Defense, National Defense

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

source: - Eugene J. McCarthy (2004). “Parting Shots from My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life”, p.15, Fulcrum Publishing

Topics: Powerful, Broken, Stronger, Broken Things

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

Topics: Kind, Judgment, Instruments

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

source: - Eugene J. McCarthy (1975). “The hard years: a look at contemporary America and American institutions”, Viking Pr

Topics: Country, Support, President

There are two ways that you can gain territory from another group. One is by conquest. That's essentially the way we took California from Mexico and... Texas as well. But what's going on now may end up being a kind of recolonization of the Southwest, because the other way you can regain territory is by population infiltration and demographic dominance.... The United States will be faced with the problem that Canada has been faced with... and which our system is not prepared to accommodate.

source: - Source: abcnews.go.com

Topics: Two, California, Texas, Infiltration

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.

Topics: Country, Party, Men

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.

Topics: Thinking, Pigs, Together

If any of you are secret poets, the best way to break into print is to run for the presidency,

Topics: Running, Secret, Way

There is danger in the concentration of control in the television and radio networks, especially in the large television and radio stations; danger in the concentration of ownership in the press...and danger in the increasing concentration of selection by book publishers and reviewers and by the producers of radio and television programs.

Topics: Book, Radio, Television, Radio Stations, Television And Radio

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

Topics: Smell, Tears, Hospitality

Vote against anything introduced with a "re" in it, especially reforms, reorganizations, and recodifications. This usually means going back to something that failed once and is likely to do so again.

Topics: Mean, Reform, Reorganization

Remember that the worst accidents occur in the middle of the road.

source: - Eugene J. McCarthy (2004). “Parting Shots from My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life”, p.108, Fulcrum Publishing

Topics: Remember, Middle, Worst, Middle Of The Road

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

source: - Eugene J. McCarthy (2004). “Parting Shots from My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life”, p.58, Fulcrum Publishing

Topics: Battle, Republican, Function

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

Topics: Feet, Guy, Twenties

I may have been prejudiced against lawyer members of Congress, having run against one or two and having been threatened politically by a few others, and also because my own professional background was academic, principally in the liberal arts. Good lawyers, I asserted in campaigns, can be found in the yellow pages of the telephone books. Good historians, or political and social philosophers, are not so easily found or classified.

source: - Eugene J. McCarthy (1987). “Up'til Now: A Memoria”, Harcourt

Topics: Running, Art, Book, Liberal Arts, Good Lawyer

Let us pick up again these lost strands and weave them again into the fabric of America, sort out the music from the sounds and again respond to the trumpet and the steady drum.

source: - 1967 Speech to Conference of Concerned Democrats, 2 Dec.

Topics: America, Sound, Fabric

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

Topics: May, Get Involved, Aloof

There is a long-standing tradition in America of scoffing at poets, especially if they show any interest in politics.

source: - Eugene J. McCarthy (2004). “Parting Shots from My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life”, p.165, Fulcrum Publishing

Topics: Scoffing, Interest In Politics

The mortician interviewing the corpses

Topics: Morticians

Have you ever tried to split sawdust?

source: - Response to accusations that he had split the US Democratic Party by campaigning for president, NBC TV, October 23, 1969.

Topics: Sawdust