Adlai Stevenson
Adlai Stevenson
Adlai Ewing Stevenson IIwas an American politician and diplomat, noted for his intellectual demeanor, eloquent public speaking, and promotion of progressive causes in the Democratic Party. He served as the 31st Governor of Illinois, and received the Democratic Party's nomination for president in 1952 even though he had not campaigned in the primaries. John Frederick Martin says party leaders selected him because he was "more moderate on civil rights than Estes Kefauver, yet nonetheless acceptable to labor and urban machines—so...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth5 February 1900
CityLos Angeles, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Adlai Stevenson quotes about
Via ovicpitum dura est", or, for the benefit of the engineers among you: "The way of the egghead is hard
Men may be born free; they cannot be born wise; and it is the duty of the university to make the free wise.
Self-Criticism is the secret weapon of democracy, and candor and confession are good for the political soul.
Bad administration, to be sure, can destroy good policy; but good administration can never save bad policy.
Eggheads, unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks.
A wise man who stands firm is a statesman, a foolish man who stands firm is a catastrophe.
Man is a strange animal, he doesn't like to read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it.
Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses.
Our strength lies, not alone in our proving grounds and our stockpiles, but in our ideals, our goals, and their universal appeal to all men who are struggling to breathe free.
Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely.
The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-communism.
A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience, and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.
A man doesn't save a century, or a civilization, but a militant party wedded to a principle can.
If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is no barking dog to be tethered on a ten-foot chain.