Joseph McCarthy Quotes
November 14, 1908 - May 2, 1957
More Joseph McCarthy Quotes
American life, in large cities, is a perpetual assault on the senses and the nerves; it is out of asceticism, out of unworldliness, precisely, that we bear it.
Joseph McCarthy— 1947 'America the Beautiful', in Commentary, Sep.
McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled.
Joseph McCarthy— 1952 Re-election campaign slogan. US writer, critic and social commentator. She is best known for her novel The Group (1963).
The American character looks always as if it just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has an all too professional air.
Joseph McCarthy— 1947 'America the Beautiful', in Commentary, Sep.
When an American heiress wants to buy a man, she at once crosses the Atlantic. The only really materialistic people I have ever met have been Europeans.
Joseph McCarthy— 1947 'America the Beautiful', in Commentary, Sep.
The happy ending is our national belief.
Joseph McCarthy— 1947 'America the Beautiful', in Commentary, Sep.
Liberty, asit is conceived bycurrent opinion, hasnothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.
Joseph McCarthy— 1952 Speech. Collected as 'The Contagion of Ideas', in On the Contrary (1961).
Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted.
Joseph McCarthy— 1953 'My Confession'. Collected in On the Contrary (1961).
In theunreal realms of the canals, as in a Swiftian Lilliput, the real world, with its contrivances, appears as a vast folly.
Joseph McCarthy— 1956 Of Venice. Venice Observed, ch.1.
To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.
Joseph McCarthy— 1957 Of Catholicism. Memories of a Catholic Girlhood,'To the Reader'.
Bureaucracy, theruleof no one, hasbecomethemodern form of despotism.
Joseph McCarthy— 1958 'Vita Activa', in the NewYorker,18 Oct.
There are no new truths, but only truths that have not been recognized by those who have perceived them without noticing.
Joseph McCarthy— 1958 'Vita Activa', in the NewYorker,18 Oct.
The labor of keeping house is labor in its most naked state, for labor istoil that never finishes, toil that hastobe begun again the moment it is completed, toil that is destroyed and consumed by the life process.
Joseph McCarthy— 1958 'Vita Activa', in the NewYorker,18 Oct.
In violence, we forget who we are.
Joseph McCarthy— 1961On the Contrary,'Characters in Fiction'.
An interviewer asked me what book I thought best represented the modern American woman. All I could think of to answer was: Madame Bovary.
Joseph McCarthy— On the Contrary, 'Characters in Fiction' (1961)
Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man. 528
Joseph McCarthy— 1965 Birds of America,'Epistle from Mother Carey's Chicken'.
In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.
Joseph McCarthy— 1967 Vietnam,'Solutions'.
I once said in an interview that every word she writes is a lie, including 'and'and 'the'.
Joseph McCarthy— 1980 In response to Lillian Hellman's memoir, Scoundrel Time, in the NewYork Times,16 Feb.
Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down.
Joseph McCarthy— Speech in Wheeling, West Virginia (9 February 1950), as quoted at History Matters.
Any man who has been given the honor of being promoted to general and who says, "I will protect another general who protects Communists," is not fit to wear that uniform, general.
Joseph McCarthy— Remark to Gen. Ralph Zwicker during the Army investigations (18 February 1954), quoted in David M. Oshinsky (2005) A Conspiracy So Immense.
I have here in my hand a list of 205 that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.
Joseph McCarthy— Attributed to a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia (9 February 1950), as printed in the Wheeling Intelligencer. At dispute is whether McCarthy claimed 205 names, as many historical accounts say, or 57 names, as McCarthy said on the Senate floor; see Congressional Record (20 February 1950). McCarthy admitted using the number 205 in speeches, but in reference to a statistic for which he had no names. Eyewitnesses to the speech remember him referring to both figures at different points. McCarthy provided a copy of his list to Sen. Millard Tydings on request; it had 81 names, some of which had handwritten annotations. He refused to disclose all of the names publicly unless given access to relevant government files, citing libel concerns. See also Blacklisted from History (2007) by M. Stanton Evans.
When the wind is right, a faint odor of kerosene is exhaled from Senator McCarthy.
Joseph McCarthy— Ray Bradbury, in Nation (2 May 1953), and quoted in "About Fahrenheit 451 : Historical Influences for Fahrenheit 451"
Nothing would probably please him more than to get the publicity that would be generated by a public repudiation by the President.
Joseph McCarthy— US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, on declining to publicly confront McCarthy's strategies, as quoted in The Party of Fear (1988), by David Harry Bennett, p. 304
I will not get in the gutter with that guy.
Joseph McCarthy— Dwight D. Eisenhower, as quoted in Robert J. Donovan (1956) Eisenhower: The Inside Story
The junior senator from Wisconsin, by his reckless charges, has so preyed upon the fears and hatreds and prejudices of the American people that he has started a prairie fire which neither he nor anyone else may be able to control.
Joseph McCarthy— Senator J. William Fulbright (D-Arkansas), as quoted in Enough Rope (1969) by Arthur Vivian Watkins
Hoover knew that Joe wasn't the best guy in the world to be doing this job. We all did ... But his attitude was, "Thank God somebody's doing it." They were fighting the same enemy, you know.
Joseph McCarthy— Robert J. Morris, as quoted in A Conspiracy So Immense?, (2005) by David M. Oshinsky, p. 258; this summation of Hoover's attitude by Morris has since appeared as if it were a direct quote of Hoover.
This is the first time in my experience, and I was ten years in the Senate, that I ever heard of a Senator trying to discredit his own Government before the world.… Your telegram is not only not true and an insolent approach to a situation that should have been worked out between man and man but it shows conclusively that you are not even fit to have a hand in the operation of the Government of the United States.
Joseph McCarthy— Harry S. Truman, drafted response (probably unsent) to a telegram received on 11 February 1950. [1]
