John McCarthy quotes:

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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'.

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

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

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

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

Hard distinctions make bad philosophy.

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.

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

Amateur bureaucrats are often even worse than professional bureaucrats.

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

Compassion is contempt with a human face.

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.

Self-righteousness has killed more people than smoking.

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

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.

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

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.

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

A declining institution often experiences survival of the unfittest.

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

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

Suicidal terrorists may have short shelf lives.