Quotes by Adlai Stevenson
An Independent is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics.
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.
Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set.
For these reasons, and not because I love birds the less or cats the more, I veto and withhold my approval from Senate Bill No. 93.The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a national characteristic of the police state, not of democracy. The history of Soviet Russia is a modern example of this ancient practice. I must, in good conscience, protest against any unnecessary suppression of our rights as free men. We must not burn down the house to kill the rats.
I understand the plight of the Negro–though I am not one myself–and if elected, will do everything within my power to fully integrate our fine Colored folk into everyday, national society. That is my personal pledge to you, the American people, as well as the Negro. We have rights to wrong, and we can not be deterred by a region of our great land who stubbornly clings to outdated notions that the Negro is an inferior being.
Do you know the difference between a beautiful woman and a charming one? A beauty is a woman you notice, a charmer is one who notices you.
A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.
America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact – the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality.
Communism is the death of the soul. It is the organization of total conformity – in short, of tyranny – and it is committed to making tyranny universal.
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends… that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
He who slings mud generally loses ground.
Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full-time job.
A diplomat's life is made up of three ingredients: protocol, Geritol and alcohol.
I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.
A beauty is a woman you notice; a charmer is one who notices you.
I believe that if we really want human brotherhood to spread and increase until it makes life safe and sane, we must also be certain that there is no one true faith or path by which it may spread.
Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction.
Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.
An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.
I have tried to talk about the issues in this campaign… and this has sometimes been a lonely road, because I never meet anybody coming the other way.
Freedom rings where opinions clash.
A funny thing happened to me on the way to the White House…
Any great institution or idea must suffer its pains of birth and growth. We will not lose faith in the United Nations. We see it as a living thing and we will work and pray for its full growth and development. We want it to become what it was intended to be a world society of nations under law, not merely law backed by force, but law backed by justice and popular consent.
Ignorance is stubborn and prejudice is hard.
After four years at the United Nations I sometimes yearn for the peace and tranquillity of a political convention.
I refuse to personally criticize President Eisenhower, I will not submit to the Republican concept of gravity.
A hungry man is not a free man.
For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.
Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than the freedom to stagnate.
In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes.
I'm not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.
Every age needs men who will redeem the time by living with a vision of the things that are to be.
Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.
I don't want to send them to jail. I want to send them to school.
A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.
If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
I do not believe it is man's destiny to compress this once boundless earth into a small neighborhood, the better to destroy it. Nor do I believe it is in the nature of man to strike eternally at the image of himself, and therefore of God. I profoundly believe that there is on this horizon, as yet only dimly perceived, a new dawn of conscience. In that purer light, people will come to see themselves in each other, which is to say they will make themselves known to one another by their similarities rather than by their differences. Man's knowledge of things will begin to be matched by man's knowledge of self. The significance of a smaller world will be measured not in terms of military advantage, but in terms of advantage for the human community. It will be the triumph of the heartbeat over the drumbeat.
A wise man does not try to hurry history.
I think that one of the most fundamental responsibilities is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and willingly.
If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain.
Adlai Stevenson Quotes
On this shrunken globe, men can no longer live as strangers.
The Republicans have a me too candidate running on a yes but platform, advised by a has been staff.
We live in an era of revolution the revolution of rising expectations.
We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on it's vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed, for our safety, to it's security and peace. Preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft.
The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step. So we must never neglect any work of peace within our reach, however small.
Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff.
Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation.
There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.
The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal – that you can gather votes like box tops – is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.
Nature is neutral.
On the plains of hesitation lie the blackened bones of countless millions who at the dawn of victory lay down to rest, and in resting died.
It was always accounted a virtue in a man to love his country. With us it is now something more than a virtue. It is a necessity. When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.
The best reason I can think of for not running for President of the United States is that you have to shave twice a day.
The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.
What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is for the most part incommunicable.
Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.
There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one's convictions and not tell the people the truth.
The human race has improved everything, but the human race.
The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak, of anti-communism.
Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.
Well, speaking as a Christian, I would like to say that I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling.
The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.
In America, anyone can become president. That's one of the risks you take.
These are my beliefs and I hold them deeply, but they would be without any inner meaning for me unless I felt that they were also the deep beliefs of human beings everywhere. And the proof of this, to my mind, is the very existence of the United Nations.
When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.
The problem of cat versus bird is as old as time. If we attempt to resolve it by legislation who knows but what we may be called upon to take sides as well in the age old problems of dog versus cat, bird versus bird, or even bird versus worm. In my opinion, the State of Illinois and its local governing bodies already have enough to do without trying to control feline delinquency.
The relationship of the toastmaster to speaker should be the same as that of the fan to the fan dancer. It should call attention to the subject without making any particular effort to cover it.
In quiet places, reason abounds.
With the supermarket as our temple and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fire the world with an irresistible vision of Americas exalted purpose and inspiring way of life?
Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.
Unreason and anti-intellectualism abominate thought. But shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom.
The elephant has a thick skin, a head full of ivory, and as everyone who has seen a circus parade knows, proceeds best by grasping the tail of its predecessor.
We hear the Secretary of State boasting of his brinkmanship the art of bringing us to the edge of the abyss.
Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them.
There is a New America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us whether we will it or not.
Your days are short here; this is the last of your springs. And now in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place, touch the depths of truth, feel the hem of Heaven. You will go away with old, good friends. And don't forget when you leave why you came.
It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
We mean by politics the peoples business the most important business there is.
We talk a great deal about patriotism. What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility which will enable America to remain master of her power to walk with it in serenity and wisdom, with self-respect and the respect of all mankind; a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. The dedication of a lifetime these are words that are easy to utter, but this is a mighty assignment. For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.
We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments.
There is a spiritual hunger in the world today – and it cannot be satisfied by better cars on longer credit terms.
You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news.
The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams.
What do I believe? As an American I believe in generosity, in liberty, in the rights of man. These are social and political faiths that are part of me, as they are, I suppose, part of all of us. Such beliefs are easy to express. But part of me too is my relation to all life, my religion. And this is not so easy to talk about. Religious experience is highly intimate and, for me, ready words are not at hand.
The Republican party makes even its young men seem old; the Democratic Party makes even its old men seem young.
The early years of the United Nations have been difficult ones, but what did we expect? That peace would drift down from the skies like soft snow? That there would be no ordeal, no anguish, no testing, in this greatest of all human undertakings?
You know, you really can't beat a household commodity – the ketchup bottle on the kitchen table.
You are in the courtroom of world opinion . All right, sir, let me ask you one simple question: Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no dont wait for the translation yes or no? [The Soviet representative refuses to answer.] You can answer yes or no. You have denied they exist. I want to know if I understood you correctly. I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if thats your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room.
Respect for intellectual excellence, the restoration of vigor and discipline to our ideas of study, curricula which aim at strengthening intellectual fiber and stretching the power of young minds, personal commitment and responsibility these are the preconditions of educational recovery in America today; and, I believe, they have always been the preconditions of happiness and sanity for the human race.
The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. But there is also, it seems to me, a moment at which democracy must prove its capacity to act. Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal chords.
In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.
It will be helpful in our mutual objective to allow every man in America to look his neighbor in the face and see a man-not a color.
There is no evil in the atom, only in mens souls.
We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.
She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world.
It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts.
The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.
Some people approach every problem with an open mouth.
Man is a strange animal. He generally cannot read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it.
Journalists do not live by words alone, although sometimes they have to eat them.
You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad.
Peace is the one condition of survival in this nuclear age.
Making peace is harder than making war.
It is an ancient political vehicle, held together by soft soap and hunger and with front-seat drivers and back-seat drivers contradicting each other in a bedlam of voices, shouting go right and go left at the same time.
Saskatchewan is much like Texas except it's more friendly to the United States
Lets face it. Lets talk sense to the American people. Lets tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions.
We live in a time when automation is ushering in a second industrial revolution
Laws are never as effective as habits.
Law is not a profession at all, but rather a business service station and repair shop.
Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses.
Words calculated to catch everyone may catch no one.
Nixon is finding out there are no tails on an Eisenhower jacket.
To act coolly, intelligently and prudently in perilous circumstances is the test of a man and also a nation.
Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.
We have confused the free with the free and easy.
The whole basis of the United Nations is the right of all nations great or small to have weight, to have a vote, to be attended to, to be a part of the twentieth century.
Nature is indifferent to the survival of the human species, including Americans.
The New Dealers have all left Washington to make way for the car dealers.
Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
The definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
The art of government has grown from its seeds in the tiny city-states of Greece to become the political mode of half the world. So let us dream of a world in which all states, great and small, work together for the peaceful flowering of the republic of man.
