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About this quote

What does it mean?
McCarthy suggests a president must have faced temptation by a cardinal sin.
In plain terms
A president needs to know temptation to rule.
What can you take from it?
Experience with moral failure prepares a leader.

Where it applies

  • evaluating candidates
  • moral philosophy

Putting it to work

  • vetting leaders for experience
  • discussing human nature

Questions to consider

  • Does experience with sin help a leader?
  • What should a president have learned?

Another view

This romanticizes corruption or sin as necessary.

More from Eugene McCarthy

  1. Nixon is the kind of guy who, if you were drowning twenty feet from shore, would throw you a fifteen-foot rope.

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  2. One thing about a pig, he thinks he's warm if his nose is warm. I saw a bunch of pigs one time that had frozen together in a rosette, each one's nose tucked un…

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  3. It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember.

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