Quotes by Stevenson, Adlai E.

"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."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on elections   

"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."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on elections   

"A wise man who stands firm is a statesman, a foolish man who stands firm is a catastrophe."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on firmness   

"Flattery is all right if you don't inhale."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on flattery   

"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."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on freedom   

"We have confused the free with the free and easy."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on freedom   

"A hungry man is not a free man."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on freedom   

"The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on freedom   

"The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on freedom   

"Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on generations
4 fans of this quote   

"Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady, but a newspaper can always print a retraction."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on accuracy
4 fans of this quote   

"What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is for the most part incommunicable."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on age and aging   

"Golf is a fine relief from the tensions of office, but we are a little tired of holding the bag."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on golf   

"Laws are never as effective as habits."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on habit   

"It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts!"

Stevenson, Adlai E. on life
4 fans of this quote   

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

Stevenson, Adlai E. on patriotism   

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

Stevenson, Adlai E. on patriotism   

"Peace is the one condition of survival in this nuclear age."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on peace   

"The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on platitudes   

"A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on politics   

"We mean by politics the people's business -- the most important business there is."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on politics   

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

Stevenson, Adlai E. on politics   

"Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on power   

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

Stevenson, Adlai E. on president   

"It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on principles   

"All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on progress   

"I will make a bargain with the Republicans. If they will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on slander
3 fans of this quote   

"A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on society   

"I sometimes marvel at the extraordinary docility with which Americans submit to speeches."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on speakers and speaking   

"The relationship of the toastmaster to the 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."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on speakers and speaking   

"Some people approach every problem with an open mouth."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on speakers and speaking   

"I would rather be guilty of talking over a person's head than behind his back."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on speakers and speaking   

"On this shrunken globe, men can no longer live as strangers."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on brotherhood   

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

Stevenson, Adlai E. on change
8 fans of this quote   

"Nature is indifferent to the survival of the human species, including Americans."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on survival   

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

Stevenson, Adlai E. on understanding   

"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."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on nations   

"Every age needs men who will redeem the time by living with a vision of the things that are to be."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on vision   

"Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on words   

"The human race has improved everything, but the human race."

Stevenson, Adlai E. on civilization