Quotes By John McCarthy

Asking a critic to name his favorite book is like asking a butcher to name his favorite pig.

Foolishness is rarely a matter of lack of intelligence or even lack of information.

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.

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.

He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Proposals to forbid golf courses have about the same motivations as proposals to forbid skate boarding, although the rationalizations are different.

The slogan was 'Don't trust anyone over thirty'. Sixty years later the slogan became, 'Don't trust anyone over ninety'.

If a person can be said to have the wrong attitude, there is no need to pay attention to his arguments.

Compassion is contempt with a human face.

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.

Honor among thieves is the ancestor of all honor.

My opinion is that he's a swindler and you're a sucker.

Once a person has killed other people on behalf of an ideology, he becomes rather devoted to it.

When thugs by nature meet thugs by political conviction, 5-0 is not surprising.

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.

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.

Soccer riots kill at most tens. Intellectuals' ideological riots sometimes kill millions.

Self-righteousness has killed more people than smoking.

Committing genocide on behalf of an institution generates greater loyalty to it than merely getting people fired from their jobs on its behalf.

An excessive knowledge of Marxism is a sign of a misspent youth.

With no more than six levels of misquotation, any statement can be made to say whatever you wish.

Language is froth on the surface of thought.

We modern Marxists regard socialism as a historically brief transitional stage between feudalism and capitalism, necessary only in backward countries.

A declining institution often experiences survival of the unfittest.

If I owned Marseilles and Hell, I'd rent out Marseilles and live in Hell.

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.

His ambition is to be the spider in the World Wide Web.

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.

When I see a slippery slope, my instinct is to build a terrace.

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.