Top 15 Eugene McCarthy Quotes

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.