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Eugene McCarthy Quotes

1916–2005 United States

Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy (29 March 1916 – 10 December 2005) American politician from the U.S. state of Minnesota, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives (1949–1959) and the U.S.

United States
Memoirists

Also known as: McCarthy, Eugene

Random Eugene McCarthy quote

17 quotes

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

Isn’t it curious that they always played touch football and never football.

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

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

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

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

There is only one thing to do — take it to the country!

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.

Have you ever tried to split sawdust?

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

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

The real basis of freedom of speech and of expression is not, however, the right of a person to say what he thinks or what he wishes to say but the right and need of all persons to learn the truth. The only practical approach to this end is freedom of expression.

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.

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

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

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.

"a light rinse" would be sufficient. Said in response to George Romney's claim that he had been "brainwashed" by the US military leaders in Vietnam. It is not clear where or when exactly the quote was supposedly said. See this entry from MediaMythAlert.

Attributed

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Eugene McCarthy (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.