John McCarthy Quotes

Even in a healthy society, violence, lawlessness, and predation lie just below the surface.

Fifty dorcas they’re setting up an ambush near my ship. (Nykyrian) No bet. I know they are. They’re too stupid to not be obvious and predictable. Gah, I hate abiding by the law. Too bad you can’t slaughter them where they stand. (Syn)

You can easily die racing to cover a bank robbery as you can in a war zone.

Violence breeds counter-violence.

When you criminalize something, only criminals can deal with it. When criminals deal with it, there's no recourse to law, so there's only recourse to violence.

A song ain't why people kill cops.

Americans love to read about violence.

Nations fight against nations, in marriages people fight against each other, children fight against each other. We are in warfare, in a national warfare, and in warfare with each other and with ourselves.

The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.

I have busted more hippies' noses than all the narcs in the free world.

Going after 'the bad guy' has not been a real issue for me.

If you go into a bank or a shop and you want them to believe that you're going to shoot them, that's an acting exercise. If you want to turn to someone else who's as tooled up as you are and persuade them to put their knife down because you'll use your knife, that's an acting exercise. Nine out of 10 delinquents are frustrated actors.

We will push those crooks, those mercenaries back into the swamp.

Religion and politics hit nerves. There's a lot of anger about a lot of things. It's not easily resolved. I guess that's what wars are about. Wars are about prejudice and fear. Hit first before you get hit. Believe me, I know.

I haven't been part of the criminal world.

New York now leads the world's great cities in the number of people around whom you shouldn't make a sudden move.

Well, I'm used to rubbing shoulders with crooks and criminals.

They’re invading.

Intolerance breeds injustice. Injustice invariably leads to rebellion and retaliation, and these will lead to escalation on the part of both making reconciliation almost impossible

The fact is the condition of affairs in Dodge, instead of improving, as I had hoped, seems to be growing worse. I hear, every now and then, of robberies committed on innocent strangers, who have come to Kansas to seek homes. Visitors inform me that the saloons are increasing, not only in numbers, but in depravity; and that thieves, desperadoes, gamblers and criminals generally, are multiplying. It is also alleged that these lawless characters dominate in the city; that they have terrorized all the better elements of society; that they openly and defiantly flaunt their viciousness and depravity; and that they appear to think there is no power or authority that can reach or punish them.

I see in our relation with the [Austrian] Bund an error of Prussia's which, sooner or later, we shall have to repair ferro et igni ["sword and fire"], unless we take advantage betimes of a favorable season to employ a healing remedy [i.e. war] against it.

Anybody who resorts to violence will have no friends in the United States.

Provoking us into quarrels and violations of the peace is one of the most common methods used … to destroy public sympathy and defeat our cause.