Quotes By Adlai E. Stevenson

Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than the freedom to stagnate.

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

Laws are never as effective as habits.

Freedom rings where opinions clash.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.

We have confused the free with the free and easy.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

I think that one of the most fundamental responsibilities is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and willingly.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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