Home › Authors › Adlai Stevenson II
Adlai Stevenson II Quotes
1900–1965 United States
Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (5 February 1900 – 14 July 1965) was an American politician and statesman, noted for his skill in debate and oratory; Governor of Illinois, he was twice an unsuccessful candidate for President of the United States running against Dwight D. Eisenhower (in 1952 and 1956).
United States Academics Anti-communists Editors Lawyers Also known as: Adlai E. Stevenson, Adlai Ewing Stevenson, Adlai Stevenson, Stevenson, Adlai
Random Adlai Stevenson II quote
122 quotes
We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.
Every age needs men who will redeem the time by living with a vision of the things that are to be.
What I Think (1956)
She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world.
I believe in the infinite wisdom that envelops and embraces me and from which I take direction, purpose, strength.
Essay in This I Believe : 2 (1952)
After four years at the United Nations I sometimes yearn for the peace and tranquillity of a political convention.
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.
Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952)
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind.
Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them.
The really basic thing in government is policy. Bad administration, to be sure, can destroy good policy, but good administration can never save bad policy.
Laws are never as effective as habits.
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.
There is no evil in the atom, only in men's souls.
There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one's convictions and not tell the people the truth.
Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.
What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is, for the most part, incommunicable.
To my way of thinking it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that count in the long run.
Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.
Speeches of Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1952)
Nature is indifferent to the survival of the human species, including Americans.
Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.
Topics Adlai Stevenson II is quoted on
Works