A Quote by Charles McCarry

As an old man who remembers the intellectual exhilaration and the pleasure of having done good work that characterized the CIA when it was young, I wonder if it might not be better to speak and think in terms of restoring its culture.

Charles McCarry

Quote Topics

Better CIA Culture Done Exhilaration Good Good Work Having Intellectual Man Might Old Old Man Pleasure Remembers Restoring Speak Terms Think Wonder Work Young

Quote Author

Charles McCarry
American - Writer
Born: 1930

When an old man and a young man work together, it can make an ugly sight or a pretty one, depending on who's in charge. If the young man's in charge or won't let the old man take over, the young man's brute strength becomes destructive and inefficient, and the old man's intelligence, out of frustration, grows cruel and inefficient. Sometimes the old man forgets that he is old and tries to compete with the young man's strength, and then it's a sad sight. Or the young man forgets that he is young and argues with the old man about how to do the work, and that's a sad sight, too.

Russell Banks

The law of the pleasure in having done anything for another is, that the one almost immediately forgets having given, and the other remembers eternally having received.

Seneca the Younger

The left-wing thinkers and intellectuals have been more misogynist with me than the army. They can't accept that a young woman is able to think, and they underestimate the intellectual work and study I might have done. They ask who is the man behind me.

Maria de Medeiros

The old system of having a baby was much better than the new system, the old system being characterized by the fact that the man didn't have to watch.

Dave Barry

Human life, old and young, takes place between hope and remembrance. The young man sees all the gates to his desires open, and the old man remembers--his hopes.

Franz Grillparzer

As you might imagine, if you're a teenager having a couple of people with microphones and guns always following you around, that could grate on them. But you know, they've handled it with grace and I give Michelle [Obama] most of the credit for how well they've done, but I also just think they are graceful, good young, young women.

Barack Obama

It is not the young man who should be considered fortunate but the old man who has lived well, because the young man in his prime wanders much by chance, vacillating in his beliefs, while the old man has docked in the harbor, having safeguarded his true happiness.

Epicurus

An evil deed is better left undone, for a man repents of it afterwards; a good deed is better done, for having done it, one does not repent.

Max Muller

There was danger at times that women might not be judged by the highest standards, but more leniently because of their sex. "She is a remarkably good chemist--for a woman," you might hear a man say. It seemed to me essential, if the ablest young women scholars were to achieve the best work of which they were capable, that they should be held to the most rigorous standards. ...To advance, a woman must do at least as good work as her male colleagues, usually better.

Virginia Gildersleeve

I've never had a stupid student in my life. I never look down on my students. I never thought, "Look at these people." I might argue with them and I think that some of them might have misconceptions - that they might be infected by the intellectual laziness that is the foundation of American popular culture, and of capitalism, if you wish. But part of my job as a teacher is to work with that - against that.

Aleksandar Hemon

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing everyone a disservice by perpetuating the idea that beautiful is better than plain, because having done everything just about that you can do, sparing no expense, and not effort, to become better looking, I know that only so much can be done.

Helen Gurley Brown

Although all the good arts serve to draw man's mind away from vices and lead it toward better things, this function can be more fully performed by this art, which also provides extraordinary intellectual pleasure.

Nicolaus Copernicus

Collecting contemporary art I started with some of the younger artists. Although, having a son who's an artist, I was hesitant-I think he was a little anxious when I bought another young man's work. But it might have encouraged him in the long run.

Laurence Graff

We need spies that look like their targets, CIA officers who speak the dialects terrorists use, and FBI agents who can speak to Muslim women who might be intimidated by men.

Jane Harman

We live in a consumer culture, and Black Friday is like the July 4th of that culture. It might be good not to live in this culture, but it terms of what we can do to make people safer at big sales, it seems more useful to try to avoid dangerous crowd conditions.