“The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has an all too professional air.”

"America the Beautiful: The Humanist in the Bathtub", p. 17
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate…" by Mary McCarthy?
Mary McCarthy photo
Mary McCarthy 79
American writer 1912–1989

Related quotes

Daniel Dennett photo

“[I]n all mammalian species that have so far been carefully studied, the rate at which their members engage in the killing of conspecifics is several thousand times greater than the highest homicide rate in any American city.”

citing the research of George Williams from "Huxley's Evolution and Ethics in Sociobiological Perspective" in Zygon (v.23/88)
Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

Betty Friedan photo
Thomas Sowell photo

“What was special about America was not that it had slavery, which existed all over the world, but that Americans were among the very few peoples who began to question the morality of holding human beings in bondage. That was not yet a majority view among Americans in the 18th century, but it was not even a serious minority view.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

"The Scapegoat for Strife in the Black Community" http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420807/slavery-didnt-cause-todays-black-problems-welfare-did (7 July 2015), National Review
2010s

Zakir Hussain (politician) photo
Stephen Vizinczey photo
John Wallis photo
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam photo
John Berger photo
Anthony Trollope photo

Related topics