John McCarthy

Suicidal terrorists may have short shelf lives.

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.

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.

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.

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

In human history, the desire for revenge and the desire for loot have often been closely associated.

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

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.

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.

There is only one thing more harmful to society than an elected official forgetting the promises he made in order to get elected; that’s when he doesn’t forget them.

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

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.

Self-righteousness has killed more people than smoking.

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.

A declining institution often experiences survival of the unfittest.

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

An extreme optimist is a man who believes that humanity will probably survive even if it doesn’t take his advice.

Slogans rarely convince the unconvinced. However, they do rally the troops already on your side.

My hobby of not attending meetings about recycling saves more energy than your hobby of recycling.

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

Hard distinctions make bad philosophy.

Compassion is contempt with a human face.

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

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

Honor among thieves is the ancestor of all honor.

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

Never abandon a theory that explains something until you have a theory that explains more.

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

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

The difference between a contemporary liberal and a socialist is that to a liberal the most beautiful word in the English language is ‘forbidden’, whereas to a socialist the most beautiful word is ‘compulsory’.

Language is froth on the surface of thought.

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.

Inside of many liberals is a fascist struggling to get out.

Amateur bureaucrats are often even worse than professional bureaucrats.

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

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

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

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.

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