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Adlai Stevenson II

109 quotes

“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. 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.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Vetoing a Bill that would have imposed fines on owners who allowed cats to run at large. (23 April 1949)
“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.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Voicing opposition to the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950
“Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Urbana, Illinois (1951); as quoted in Adlai's Almanac: The Wit and Wisdom of Stevenson of Illinois (1952), p. 20
“Words calculated to catch everyone may catch no one.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois. (21 July 1952); published in Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952)
“What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for. Who leads us is less important than what leads us — what convictions, what courage, what faith — win or lose. A man doesn't save a century, or a civilization, but a militant party wedded to a principle can.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois. (21 July 1952); published in Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952) p. 17
“Let's face it. Let's talk sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions, like resistance when you're attacked, but a long, patient, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of man — war, poverty, and tyranny — and the assaults upon human dignity which are the most grievous consequences of each.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Acceptance speech, Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois (26 July 1952)
“True Patriotism, it seems to me, is based on tolerance and a large measure of humility.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the American Legion convention, New York City (27 August 1952); as quoted in "Democratic Candidate Adlai Stevenson Defines the Nature of Patriotism" in Lend Me Your Ears : Great Speeches In History (2004) by W…
“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.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the American Legion convention, New York City (27 August 1952); as quoted in "Democratic Candidate Adlai Stevenson Defines the Nature of Patriotism" in Lend Me Your Ears : Great Speeches In History (2004) by W…
“Do you remember that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, "How well he spoke"; but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, "Let us march.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introducing John F. Kennedy in 1960, as quoted in Adlai Stevenson and The World: The Life of Adlai E. Stevenson‎ (1977) by John Bartlow Martin, p. 549
“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. Men who have offered their lives for their country know that patriotism is not the fear of something; it is the love of something.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the American Legion convention, New York City (27 August 1952); as quoted in "Democratic Candidate Adlai Stevenson Defines the Nature of Patriotism" in Lend Me Your Ears : Great Speeches In History (2004) by W…
“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 cords.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in New York City (28 August 1952)
“Laws are never as effective as habits.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in New York City (28 August 1952)
“Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Denver, Colorado (5 September 1952)
“A hungry man is not a free man.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Kasson, Minnesota (6 September 1952)
“The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech, San Francisco, California (9 September 1952)
“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.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Campaign statement in Fresno, California (10 September 1952); earlier incidence of similar comments exist:
“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.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Los Angeles Town Club, Los Angeles, California (11 September 1952); Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952), p. 31
“In the tragic days of Mussolini, the trains in Italy ran on time as never before and I am told in their way, their horrible way, that the Nazi concentration-camp system in Germany was a model of horrible efficiency. The really basic thing in government is policy. Bad administration, to be sure, can destroy good policy, but good administration can never save bad policy.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Los Angeles Town Club, Los Angeles, California (11 September 1952); Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952), p. 36
“There is no evil in the atom, only in men's souls.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Hartford, Connecticut (18 September 1952)
“We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech, Richmond, Virginia (20 September 1952)
“To remember the loneliness, the fear and the insecurity of men who once had to walk alone in huge factories, beside huge machines—to realize that labor unions have meant new dignity and pride to millions of our countrymen—human companionship on the job, and music in the home—to be able to see what larger pay checks mean, not to a man as an employee, but as a husband and as a father—to know these things is to understand what American labor means.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech (22 September 1952), reported in Report of Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor, Vol. 71 (1952)
“In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Indianapolis, Indiana (26 September 1952)
“As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end. Democracy is a high privilege, but it is also a heavy responsibility whose shadow stalks, although you may never walk in the sun.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Chicago, Illinois (29 September 1952)
“Nature is indifferent to the survival of the human species, including Americans.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Radio address (29 September 1952)
“Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Columbus, Ohio (3 October 1952); quoted in The International Thesaurus of Quotations (1970) edited by Rhoda Thomas Tripp, p. 429
“The Republicans have a "me too" candidate running on a "yes but" platform, advised by a "has been" staff.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Fort Dodge, Iowa (5 October 1952), as quoted in The Wit and Wisdom of Adlai Stevenson (1965) compiled by by Edward Hanna and Henry H. Hicks, p. 33
“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Detroit, Michigan (7 October 1952)
“Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (8 October 1952)
“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 II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (8 October 1952)
“I have said what I meant and meant what I said. I have not done as well as I should like to have done, but I have done my best, frankly and forthrightly; no man can do more, and you are entitled to no less.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech, (3 November 1952) as quoted in "The Graceful Loser" in Time (23 July 1965)
“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.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Republican Party, as quoted in news summaries (15 November 1952) and Speeches of Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1952), p. 110
“A funny thing happened to me on the way to the White House...”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Washington D.C. (13 December 1952)
“A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952), p. 39
“Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speeches of Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1952), p. 99
“I have tried to talk about the issues in this campaign... But, strangely enough, my friends, this road has been a lonely road because I never meet anybody coming the other way.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speeches of Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1952), p. 121
“Well, speaking as a Christian, I would like to say that I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Opening sentence of remarks to a Baptist convention in Texas during 1952 Presidential campaign. In his introduction the host had said that Stevenson had been asked to speak "just as a courtesy, because Dr. Norman Vincen…
“The Republican party makes even its young men seem old; the Democratic Party makes even its old men seem young.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Comparing Richard Nixon to Alben Barkley during the 1952 presidential race, as quoted in Richard Nixon: A Political and Personal Portrait (1959) by Earl Mazo, Chapter 7
“Many of the world’s troubles are not due just to Russia or communism. They would be with us in any event because we live in an era of revolution—the revolution of rising expectations. In Asia, the masses now count for something. Tomorrow, they will count for more. And, for better or for worse, the future belongs to those who understand the hopes and fears of masses in ferment. The new nations want independence, including the inalienable able right to make their own mistakes. The people want respect—and something to eat every day. And they want something better for their children.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Look, p. 46 (22 September 1953)
“He who slings mud generally loses ground.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement quoted in news summaries (11 January 1954); as quoted in Best Quotes of '54, '55, '56 (1957) edited by James Beasley Simpson, p. 58
“Unreason and anti-intellectualism abominate thought. Thinking implies disagreement; and disagreement implies nonconformity; and nonconformity implies heresy; and heresy implies disloyalty—so, obviously, thinking must be stopped. But shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Call to Greatness (1954), p. 99
“In matters of national security emotion is no substitute for intelligence, nor rigidity for prudence. To act coolly, intelligently and prudently in perilous circumstances is the test of a man — and also a nation.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Radio address (11 April 1955); as quoted in The World's Great Speeches (1999) edited by Lewis Copeland, Lawrence W. Lamm, and Stephen J. McKenna
“We mean by "politics" the people's business — the most important business there is.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Chicago, Illinois (19 November 1955)
“Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses … yet we are all children of the same Judaic-Christian civilization, with much the same religious background basically.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Political Thought of Adlai E. Stevenson (1955) by William Robert Latimer, p. 89
“We hear the Secretary of State boasting of his brinkmanship — the art of bringing us to the edge of the abyss.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Referring to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in a speech in Hartford, Connecticut (25 February 1956)
“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.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Democratic National Convention (18 August 1956)
“There is a new America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us whether we will it or not. The new America is the sum of many small changes — a new subdivision here, a new school there, a new industry where there had been swampland — changes that add up to a broad transformation of our lives. Our task is to guide these changes. For, though change is inevitable, change for the better is a full-time job.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Presidential campaign address, Miami, Florida, (September 1956), as quoted in Best Quotes of '54, '55, '56 (1957) edited by James Beasley Simpson
“Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland. But I say to you that it is not America.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Los Angeles California (27 October 1956), as quoted in The New America (1971), edited by Seymour E. Harris, John B. Martin, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., p. 249
“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.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement of 1956, as quoted in Adlai Stevenson : A Study in Values (1967) by Herbert Joseph Muller, p. 174
“I have learned that In quiet places, reason abounds, that in quiet people there is vision and purpose, that many things are revealed to the humble that are hidden from the great.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in My Brother Adlai (1956) by Elizabeth Stevenson Ives and Hildegarde Dolson
“Fill the moral vacuum, the rational vacuum, we must; reconvert a population soaked in the spirit of materialism to the spirit of humanism we must, or bit by bit we too will take on the visage of our enemy, the neo-heathens.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: What I Think (1956), p. 54