Mankind will probably survive even if it doesn't take my advice.
-- John McCarthy
When there's a will to fail, obstacles can be found.
-- John McCarthy
Personal dishonesty is not needed to produce a dishonest business plan or research proposal. Wishful thinking suffices.
-- John McCarthy
People prefer dealing with machinery to dealing with bureaucracies.
-- John McCarthy
You are eager to defend rationality against the creationists. Fine. Are you also willing to defend it against the environmentalists?
-- John McCarthy
If you want to do good, work on the technology, not on getting power.
-- John McCarthy
The politicians have a most touching faith in technology - that it can make up for any dumb thing the politicians decide to do.
-- John McCarthy
He who says he will die for a cause will probably lie for it and may kill for it.
-- John McCarthy
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.
-- John McCarthy
During the first three millenia, the Earthmen complained a lot.
-- John McCarthy
You say you couldn't live if you thought the world had no purpose. You're saying that you can't form purposes of your own - that you need someone to tell you what to do. The average child has more gumption than that.
-- John McCarthy
If everyone were to live for others all the time, life would be like a procession of ants following each other around in a circle.
-- John McCarthy
It is deplorable that many people think that the best way to improve the world is to forbid something. However, they're morally more advanced than the people who think the best way to improve the world is to kill somebody.
-- John McCarthy
Amateur bureaucrats are often even worse than professional bureaucrats.
-- John McCarthy
Here's a way to tell scientific intelligence from legal intelligence. Both may start from the idea that something cannot be done and think up arguments to explain why. However, it is possible that the scientist may discover a flaw in the argument that leads him to change his mind and discover a way to do it. He will be pleased. The legal thinker will merely try to patch the flaw in the argument, because once he has chosen a side, all his intelligence is devoted to finding arguments for that side.
-- John McCarthy
Foolishness is rarely a matter of lack of intelligence or even lack of information.
-- John McCarthy
Never abandon a theory that explains something until you have a theory that explains more.
-- John McCarthy
Would you vegetarians like a rule that food stamps cannot be used to purchase products containing meat? Would you vegans like to also forbid their use to purchase eggs, fish or milk products? Some years ago some of my fellow conservatives grumbled about the purchase of filet mignon with food stamps, but their motives were economic, and they were easily beaten down with the usual charges of heartlessness. Maybe you vegetarians would have better luck, since your hearts are pure.
-- John McCarthy
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.
-- John McCarthy
Once a person has killed other people on behalf of an ideology, he becomes rather devoted to it.
-- John McCarthy
Language is froth on the surface of thought.
-- John McCarthy
As we have recently seen, the function of the anti-trust laws is to protect the poor little fellow with a mere $5 billion from being bullied by the big guy with $50 billion.
-- John McCarthy
Hard distinctions make bad philosophy.
-- John McCarthy
A declining institution often experiences survival of the unfittest.
-- John McCarthy
You don't want to examine the basis of your computer's morality any more than you want to see sausage being made.
-- John McCarthy
When I see a slippery slope, my instinct is to build a terrace.
-- John McCarthy
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
-- John McCarthy
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