it's easier to forgive your enemies than to forgive your friends. Mary McCarthy More Quotes by Mary McCarthy More Quotes From Mary McCarthy The dictator is also the scapegoat; in assuming absolute authority, he assumes absolute guilt; and the oppressed masses, groaning under the yoke, know themselves to be innocent as lambs, while they pray hypocritically for deliverance. Mary McCarthy yoke lambs guilt All dramatic realism is somewhat sadistic; an audience is persuaded to watch something that makes it uncomfortable and from which no relief is offered - no laughter, no tears, no purgation. Mary McCarthy relief laughter tears My occupational hazard is that I can't help plagiarizing from real life. Mary McCarthy hazards real helping A politician or political thinker who calls himself a political realist is usually boasting that he sees politics, so to speak, in the raw; he is generally a proclaimed cynic and pessimist who makes it his business to look behind words and fine speeches for the motive. This motive is always low. Mary McCarthy speech political looks On the wall of our life together hung a gun waiting to be fired in the final act. Mary McCarthy wall gun waiting Proscription, martial law, the billeting of the rude troops, the tax collector, the unjust judge, anything at all, is sweeter than responsibility. Mary McCarthy responsibility judging law Once the state is looked upon as the source of rights, rather than their bound protector, freedom becomes conditional on the pleasure of the state. Mary McCarthy pleasure states rights Making love, we are all more alike than we are when we are talking or acting. Mary McCarthy making-love talking sex Scratch a socialist and you find a snob. Mary McCarthy socialist socialism scratches It really takes a hero to live any kind of spiritual life without religious belief. Mary McCarthy religious hero spiritual The breakdown of our language, evident in the misuse, i.e., the misunderstanding of nouns and adjectives, is most grave, though perhaps not so conspicuous, in the handling of prepositions, those modest little connectives that hold the parts of a phrase or a sentence together. They are the joints of any language, what make it, literally, articulate. Mary McCarthy adjectives phrases together Is it really so difficult to tell a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment afterward, in a horrid flash of regret. Mary McCarthy regret action thinking I shall never send for a priest or recite an Act of Contrition in my last moments. I do not mind if I lose my soul for all eternity. If the kind of God exists Who would damn me for not working out a deal with Him, then that is unfortunate. I should not care to spend eternity in the company of such a person. Mary McCarthy work-out soul mind America is indeed a revelation, though not quite the one that was planned. Given a clean slate, man, it was hoped, would write the future. Instead, he has written his past. Mary McCarthy writing men past Driving a car, you are in danger of killing; walking or standing, of being killed. Mary McCarthy driving car killing The only form of action open to a child is to break something or strike someone, its mother or another child; it cannot cause things to happen in the world. Mary McCarthy childhood mother children Congress-these, for the most part, illiterate hacks whose fancy vests are spotted with gravy, and whose speeches, hypocritical, unctuous, and slovenly, are spotted also with the gravy of political patronage. Mary McCarthy fancy speech political With extramarital courtship, the deception was prolonged where it had been ephemeral, necessary where it had been frivolous, conspiratorial where it had been lonely. Mary McCarthy ephemeral deception lonely Anybody who has ever tried to rectify an injustice or set a record straight comes to feel that he is going mad. Mary McCarthy injustice records mad Leisure was the sine qua non of the full Renaissance. The feudal nobility, having lost its martial function, sought diversion all over Europe in cultivated pastimes: sonneteering, the lute, games and acrostics, travel, gentlemanly studies and sports, hunting and hawking, treated as arts. Mary McCarthy hunting sports art
