Eugene McCarthy (1916 – 2005)
American politician from the U S state of Minnesota, serving in the U S House of Representatives (1949–1959) and the U S Senate from 1959 to 1971 and playing a major role in the 1968 presidential election, unsuccessfully seeking the Democratic nomination on an anti-Vietnam War platform.
I have left Act I, for involution
And Act II. There, mired in complexity
I cannot write Act III.
"Broken things are powerful."
Things about to break are stronger still.
The last shot from the brittle bow is truest.
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.
"a light rinse" would be sufficient. Said in response to wikipedia: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.
The Senate is the last primitive society in the world. We still worship the elders of the tribe and honor the territorial imperative.
We do not need presidents who are bigger than the country, but rather ones who speak for it and support it.
In politics one may remain aloof and become irrelavent or get involved and get corrupted.
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.
The function of liberal Republicans is to shoot the wounded after the battle.
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.
No man could be equipped for the presidency if he has never been tempted by one of the seven cardinal sins.
Have you ever tried to split sawdust?
The maple tree that night
Without a wind or rain
Let go its leaves
Because its time had come.
It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember.
There is only one thing to do — take it to the country!
As long as the differences and diversities of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation, and for the recognition of differences.
I can still smell the tear gas in the Hilton Hotel.
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.
I'm kind of an accidental instrument, really, through which I hope that the judgment and the will of this nation can be expressed.