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Adlai Stevenson

b: Los Angeles, California, USA, Feb 5, 1900

d: London, England, United Kingdom, Jul 14, 1965

Adlai Ewing Stevenson was an American politician, noted for his intellectual demeanor, eloquent oratory, and promotion of liberal causes in the Democratic Party. He served as the 31st Governor of Illinois, and received the Democratic Party's nomination for president in 1952 and 1956; both times he was defeated by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. He sought the Democratic presidential nomination for a third time in the election of 1960, but was defeated by Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. After his election, President Kennedy appointed Stevenson as the Ambassador to the United Nations; he served from 1961 to 1965. He died on July 14, 1965 in London, England after suffering a fatal heart attack at age 65.

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

A diplomat's life is made up of three ingredients: protocol, Geritol and alcohol.

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

A hungry man is not a free man.

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

A politician is a person who approaches every subject with an open mouth.

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

After four years at the United Nations I sometimes yearn for the peace and tranquillity of a political convention.

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.

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.

An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.

An Independent is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics.

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

Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.

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.

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.

Do you, ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no? Don't wait for the translation. Yes or no?

Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks.

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.

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

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.

Freedom rings where opinions clash.

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

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

He who slings mud generally loses ground.

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

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.

I don't envy the driver and I don't think the american people will care to ride in his bus very far.

I don't want to send them to jail. I want to send them to school.

I find Paul appealing and Peale appalling.

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.

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.

I suppose flattery hurts no one, that is, if he doesn't inhale.

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 the Republicans will stop telling lies about us, we will stop telling the truth about them.

In America any boy may become President and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes.

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

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.

It is often easier to fight for one's principles that to live up to them.

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.

It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.

Law is not a profession at all, but rather a business service station and repair shop.

Laws are never as effective as habits.

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

Man is a strange animal. He generally cannot read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it.

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

My mother was a Republican and a Unitarian, my father was a Democrat and a Presbyterian. I wound up in his party and her church, which seemed an expedient solution to the problem.

Nature is neutral.

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

Nixon is finding out there are no tails on an Eisenhower jacket.

Nixon seems to equate criticism with subversion and being hard on Republicans to being soft on communism.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Some people approach every problem with an open mouth.

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same.

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.

That's not enough, madam. We need a majority!

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 definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

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 his predecessor.

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

The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty.

The general has dedicated himself so many times, he must feel like the cornerstone of a public building.

The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.

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

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.

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

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.

The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams.

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

The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.

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.

There are no gains without pains.

There is a New America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us whether we will it or not.

There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.

There's something else I dislike just as much as creeping socialism, and that's galloping reaction.

This the first time I ever heard it said that the crime is not the burglary, but the discovery of the burglar.

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

To act coolly, intelligently and prudently in perilous circumstances is the test of a man – and also a nation.

Under the wide and starry sky. Dig the grave and let me lie.

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

We have confused the free with the free and easy.

We hear the Secretary of State boasting of his brinkmanship, the art of bringing us to the edge of the abyss.

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

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.

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

You know, you really can't beat a household commodity – the ketchup bottle on the kitchen table.

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.