Mary McCarthy Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“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.”

“People with bad consciences always fear the judgment of children.”

“Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished, or if it does, as in the case of the tilled field, this product of human activity requires still more labor, incessant, tireless labor, to maintain its identity as a 'work' of man.”

“Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.”

“You musn't force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex.”

“In violence, we forget who we are.”

“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.”

“In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.”

“Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man.”

“Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted.”