Adlai Stevenson II quotes - page 4

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. (Adlai Stevenson II)
I think that one of the most fundamental responsibilities is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and willingly. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
You know, you really can't beat a household commodity - the ketchup bottle on the kitchen table. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
She thought of herself as an ugly duckling, but she walked in beauty in the ghettos of the world, bringing with her the reminder of her beloved St. Francis, "It is in the giving that we receive." And wherever she walked beauty was forever there. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams. View quote
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. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
Respect for intellectual excellence, the restoration of vigor and discipline to our ideas of study, curricula which aim at strengthening intellectual fiber and stretching the power of young minds, personal commitment and responsibility - these are the preconditions of educational recovery in America today; and, I believe, they have always been the preconditions of happiness and sanity for the human race. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
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 its predecessor. (Adlai Stevenson II)
Fill the moral vacuum, the rational vacuum, we must; reconvert a population soaked in the spirit of materialism to the spirit of humanism we must, or bit by bit we too will take on the visage of our enemy, the neo-heathens. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
Some war hero is always getting in my way. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
Well, speaking as a Christian, I would like to say that I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
Let's face it. Let's talk sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions, like resistance when you're attacked, but a long, patient, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of man - war, poverty, and tyranny - and the assaults upon human dignity which are the most grievous consequences of each. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
The Republican party makes even its young men seem old; the Democratic Party makes even its old men seem young. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
I can't say that I love it with a fierce passion - indeed as a profession it's rather disappointing since it is not a profession at all, but rather a business service station and repair shop. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
We hear the Secretary of State boasting of his brinkmanship - the art of bringing us to the edge of the abyss. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave - to the ancient enemies of man - half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all. (Adlai Stevenson II)
In the tragic days of Mussolini, the trains in Italy ran on time as never before and I am told in their way, their horrible way, that the Nazi concentration-camp system in Germany was a model of horrible efficiency. 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. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. But there is also, it seems to me, a moment at which democracy must prove its capacity to act. Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords. View quote
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. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full-time job. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II