Adlai Stevenson Quotes

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.

I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them

You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad.

I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.

He who slings mud generally loses ground.

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.

A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.

In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.

Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.

The human race is a family. Men are brothers. All wars are civil wars.

A hungry man is not a free man.

Someone asked me...how it felt and I was reminded of a story that a fellow townsman of ours used to tell--Abraham Lincoln. They asked him how he felt once after an unsuccessful election. He said he felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.

(Adlai Stevenson once said to Richard Nixon: “If you stop telling lies about me I’ll stop telling the truth about you.

She was the kind of person who would rather light a candle than curse the darkness.

Flattery is alright if you don't inhale.

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.

I venture to suggest that patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.

Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff.

...if Clinton's answers come off as well-intended lectures, Obama is offering soaring sermons and generational opportunity. In 1960, the articulate Adlai Stevenson compared his own oratory unfavorably with John F. Kennedy's. "Do you remember," Stevenson said, "that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, 'How well he spoke,' but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said, 'Let us march.' " At this hour, Obama is the Democrats' Demosthenes.

What counts is not the years in your life but the life in your years.

Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full time job.

She would rather light candles than curse the darkness and her glow has warmed the world.

Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them.

In quiet places, reason abounds.

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.

Man is a strange animal, he doesn't like to read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it.

The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum." (Adlai E. Stevenson, 1900-1965, American Lawyer, Politician)

We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.

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.

In America, anyone can become president. That's one of the risks you take.

Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse. Adlai Stevenson

Speaking as a Christian, I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the apostle Peale appalling.

A beauty is a woman you notice; a charmer is one who notices you.

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.

Selling the presidency like cereal! How can you talk seriously about issues with half-minute spots?

Tidak ada yang bisa dicapai tanpa usaha.

Adlai Stevenson, ‘It is easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.

In a letter to Adlai Stevenson (whose two unsuccessful presidential bids had frustrated Steinbeck), he complained about the “cynical immorality” of the United States. “Having too many THINGS,” he says, “[Americans] spend their hours and money on the couch searching for a soul. A strange species we are. We can stand anything God and Nature throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.

Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood and then mount the stump to make a speech for conservation.

Someone heard Stevenson’s impressive speech and said, “Every thinking person in America will be voting for you.” Stevenson replied, “I’m afraid that won’t do—I need a majority.

But the Wisconsin tradition meant more than a simple belief in the people. It also meant a faith in the application of intelligence and reason to the problems of society. It meant a deep conviction that the role of government was not to stumble along like a drunkard in the dark, but to light its way by the best torches of knowledge and understanding it could find.

We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave—to the ancient enemies of man—half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.

And far from conducting any reconsideration of nuclear strategy, in the months ahead the Eisenhower Administration would begin to cut defense spending on conventional weapons while building up its nuclear arsenal. Eisenhower called this his “New Look” defense posture. The Administration had accepted the Air Force’s strategy and would rely almost exclusively on air power for America’s defense. A policy of “massive retaliation” appeared to be a cheap and deadly fix. It was also shortsighted, genocidal and, if initiated, suicidal. Dean Acheson called it a “fraud upon the words and upon the facts.” Adlai Stevenson asked pointedly, “Are we leaving ourselves the grim choice of inaction or thermonuclear holocaust?” The “New Look” was in fact old policy, and precisely the opposite of what Oppenheimer had hoped for from the new Administration.

A reporter from St. Louis passed on a tip that the governor was homosexual. Nixon insisted he would never use it. “Even if I thought there was anything to that story about Stevenson’s being a queer (which I don’t) I wouldn’t dream of allowing it to be used in the campaign,” Nixon wrote back. “This personal stuff (true or false) is below the belt.” But in early September, on a shakedown cruise of New England, Nixon made sport of Stevenson’s masculinity, labeling him “Sidesaddle Adlai” and snorting, “Let the other side serve up the clever quips which send the State Department cocktail set into gales of giggles.”*1

If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is no barking dog to be tethered on a ten-foot chain.

We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present. Adlai E. Stevenson (1952)

During the “Bay of Pigs Invasion” One Douglas “B-26” airplane with counterfeit Cuban markings was fired on and crashed into the sea about 30 miles north of the island. Another of these aircraft, which was also damaged but still air worthy, continued north and landed at Boca Chica Key Naval Air Station near Key West, Florida. The following day the crew was quickly flown to exile in Nicaragua. The United States government announced that the downed aircraft belonged to the Cuban air force and was manned by Cuban dissidents. In reply to this, Castro appeared on Cuban State television and denounced these claims. He put his military on high alert and directed defensive operations from the Cuban Military Headquarters, which had just been bombed by two of the masquerading airplanes. Fidel issued orders to detain anyone who was suspected of conspiracy or treason. Lists of these people had previously been prepared and were used to round up suspected dissenters. Within days, his overzealous police force and army incarcerated about 20,000 Cuban citizens, using whatever means were available, including a sports stadium. In a speech to the people, Fidel finally admitted to the public that his Movement was Socialistic. The Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa García, successfully presented evidence at the United Nations, proving that the attacks were foreign in origin. Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, replied that the United States had not participated in any action against Cuba. Ambassador Stevenson, knowing better, insisted that the aircraft that had landed in Miami had Cuban markings and therefore must have been of Cuban origin. Stevenson’s comments sounded contrived since the aircraft had Plexiglas noses, normally used as the bombardier’s station, whereas the actual Cuban B-26’s had solid noses with armament. It was obvious to the General Assembly that the United States Ambassador had been perpetrating an outright lie or, in diplomatic double talk, an untruth! It was an embarrassing moment that left the United States’ veracity open to ridicule

My friend Debbie from Texas sent me a poem to cheer me up. Her father told her that a friend of his wrote it after they worked for Adlai Stevenson, a two-time presidential candidate, on one of his landslide defeats to Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s. I have to admit, it made me chuckle: The election is now over, The result is now known. The will of the people Has clearly been shown. Let’s all get together; Let bitterness pass. I’ll hug your Elephant; And you kiss my Ass.

Politics uses story to exercise power. Adlai Stevenson once observed, “In classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, ‘How well he spoke’—but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said, ‘Let us march.’”2 Turning words into action is the central distinction in communication.

What’s the matter with us anyhow? If America ever loses confidence in herself, she will retain the confidence of no one, and she will lose her chance to be free, because the fearful are never free. —ADLAI STEVENSON, 1954

In the 1960 campaign, Arthur Schlesinger wrote of Adlai Stevenson, who already lost twice as the party's presidential nominee, "He has been away from power too long; he gives me an odd sense of unreality, a certain frivolity, distractedness, over-interest in words and phrases.

Manners matter as this author memorably illustrates. Eleanor Roosevelt stubbornly kept her clout behind Adlai Stevenson was an almost visceral resistance to John F. Kennedy's charms as a newcomer to power. The sudden death of Eleanor's granddaughter shortly before JFK was to meet with her suggested that rapprochement was impossible. Kennedy's genuine gentle manners toward the grieving former first lady won her over and may have shifted the balance in an extremely close election.

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.

This is the dilemma of science-think and yet again a situation in which scientists simply shouldn't be such scientists. Bring in the professionals, and trust them when they tell you to invest in communication. It may be frustrating and seem like a frivolous waste of resources, but what's the alternative strategy—to assume that people are rational, thinking beings? There's a famous quote by Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, who heard a woman shout to him that all the thinking people of America were with him. He replied, “That's not going to be enough, Madam; I need a majority of the public.

In America any boy may become president, and I suppose it’s just one of the risks he takes.” —Adlai Stevenson

Freedom rings where opinions clash,

A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.

John Steinbeck. The Grapes of Wrath, a huge indictment of materialism published in the thirties, is the sleeper success of publishing. In 1959 Steinbeck wrote to his friend Adlai Stevenson, the great icon of liberals, ‘If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.

It was the night of the New Jersey primary; General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who happened to be in Brussels, had defeated “Mr. Republican,” Senator Robert Taft. The very same day, Adlai Stevenson, who would eventually lose to Eisenhower in November, announced he had no intention of running for president.

John Steinbeck was so outraged that he wrote an angry letter to Adlai Stevenson that was reprinted in The New Republic and caused a considerable stir at the time. Under the title “Have We Gone Soft?” he raged, “If I wanted to destroy a nation I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy, and sick ... on all levels, American society is rigged.... I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. It cannot survive on this basis.

If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us.” —ADLAI STEVENSON (1952)

Flattery is all right, as lon gas you don't inhale