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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

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Mary McCarthy
Age: 77 †
Born: 1912
Born: June 21
Died: 1989
Died: October 25
Author
Autobiographer
Critic
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Seattle
Washington
Mary Therese McCarthy
Authority
Absolutes
Assumes
Also
Assuming
Deliverance
Absolute
Yoke
Guilt
Lambs
Innocent
Dictator
Pray
Masses
Hypocritically
Praying
Oppressed
Groaning
Mass
Tyranny
Scapegoat

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The erotic element always present in fashion, the kiss of loving labor on the body, is now overtly expressed by language. Belts hug or clasp necklines plunge jerseys bind. The word exciting tingles everywhere.
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Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted. Spicy court-memoirs, the lives of gallant ladies, recollections of an ex-nun, a monk's confession, an atheist's repentance, true-to-life accounts of prostitution and bastardy gave our ancestors a penny peep into the forbidden room.
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Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man.
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If you want to be your own master ... always be surprised by evil never anticipate it.
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Like Michelangelo and Cellini, Florentines of every station are absorbed in acquiring real estate: a little apartment that can be rented to foreigners a farm that will supply the owner with oil, wine, fruit, and flowers for the house.
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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.
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From what I have seen, I am driven to the conclusion that religion is only good for good people.
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The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of view, intolerable.
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My occupational hazard is that I can't help plagiarizing from real life.
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In violence, we forget who we are
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Modern neurosis began with the discoveries of Copernicus. Science made men feel small by showing him that the earth was not the center of the universe.
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Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished.
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The return to a favorite novel is generally tied up with changes in oneself that must be counted as improvements, but have the feel of losses. It is like going back to a favorite house, country, person nothing is where it belongs, including one's heart.
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It really takes a hero to live any kind of spiritual life without religious belief.
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What's the use of falling in love if you both remain inertly as you were?
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The idea of Macbeth as a conscience-torm ented man is a platitude as false as Macbeth himself. Macbeth has no conscience. His main concern throughout the play is that most selfish of all concerns: to get a good night's sleep.
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I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently inhibited about the things that other women are inhibited about for me. They feel that you've given away trade secrets.
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