Eugene McCarthy Quotes

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Whatever is morally necessary must be made politically possible.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Never say anything in a national campaign that anyone might remember.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

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.

The mortician interviewing the corpses

Have you ever tried to split sawdust?

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

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