Adlai Stevenson II Quotes

130 Sourced Quotes

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.

Adlai Stevenson II
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
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.

Adlai Stevenson II
Carelessness about our security is dangerous; carelessness about our freedom is also dangerous.

Adlai Stevenson II
A free society means a society based on free competition and there is no more important competition than competition in ideas, competition in opinion. This form of competition is essential to the preservation of a free press.

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

Adlai Stevenson II
Because we believe in the free mind we are also fighting those who, in the name of anti-Communism, would assail the community of freedom itself.

Adlai Stevenson II
Nature is neutral. Man has wrested from nature the power to make the world a desert or to make the deserts bloom.

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

Adlai Stevenson II
The university is the archive of the Western mind, it's the keeper of the Western culture,... the guardian of our heritage, the teacher of our teachers,... the dwelling place of the free mind.

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

Adlai Stevenson II
The strange alchemy of time has somehow converted the Democrats into the truly conservative party in the country—the party dedicated to conserving all that is best and building solidly and safely on these foundations. The Republicans, by contrast, are behaving like the radical party—the party of the reckless and embittered, bent on dismantling institutions which have been built solidly into our social fabric.

Adlai Stevenson II
On Eisenhower having dedicated countless buildings and other public structures:
The General has dedicated himself so many times he must feel like the cornerstone of a public building.

Adlai Stevenson II
The Republican Vice Presidential Candidate... asks you to place him a heartbeat from the Presidency.

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

Adlai Stevenson II
We talk a great deal about patriotism. 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 which will enable America to remain master of her power — to walk with it in serenity and wisdom, with self-respect and the respect of all mankind; a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. The dedication of a lifetime — these are words that are easy to utter, but this is a mighty assignment. For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.

Adlai Stevenson II
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
The early years of the United Nations have been difficult ones, but what did we expect? That peace would drift down from the skies like soft snow? That there would be no ordeal, no anguish, no testing, in this greatest of all human undertakings?
Any great institution or idea must suffer its pains of birth and growth. We will not lose faith in the United Nations. We see it as a living thing and we will work and pray for its full growth and development. We want it to become what it was intended to be — a world society of nations under law, not merely law backed by force, but law backed by justice and popular consent.

Adlai Stevenson II
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
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.

Adlai Stevenson II
She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world.

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

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

Adlai Stevenson II
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.

Adlai Stevenson II
On this shrunken globe men can no longer live as strangers. Men can war against each other as hostile neighbors, as we are determined not to do; or they can co-exist in frigid isolation, as we are doing. But our prayer is that men everywhere will learn, finally, to live as brothers, to respect each other's differences, to heal each other's wounds, to promote each other's progress, and to benefit from each other's knowledge.

Adlai Stevenson II
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
What do I believe? As an American I believe in generosity, in liberty, in the rights of man. These are social and political faiths that are part of me, as they are, I suppose, part of all of us. Such beliefs are easy to express. But part of me too is my relation to all life, my religion. And this is not so easy to talk about. Religious experience is highly intimate and, for me, ready words are not at hand. I am profoundly aware of the magnitude of the universe, that all is ruled by law, including my finite person. I believe in the infinite wisdom that envelops and embraces me and from which I take direction, purpose, strength.

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

Adlai Stevenson II