44 Adlai Stevenson Quotes on Politics

Adlai Stevenson quotes on politics

1. The problem of cat versus bird is as old as time. If we attempt to resolve it by legislation who knows but what we may be called upon to take sides as well in the age old problems of dog versus cat, bird versus bird, or even bird versus worm. In my opinion, the State of Illinois and its local governing bodies already have enough to do without trying to control feline delinquency. For these reasons, and not because I love birds the less or cats the more, I veto and withhold my approval from Senate Bill No. 93.

3. Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.

7. 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.

10. 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.

12. True Patriotism, it seems to me, is based on tolerance and a large measure of humility.

13. 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.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

16. The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.

17. Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.

18. 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.

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

25. The Republicans have a 'me too' candidate running on a 'yes but' platform, advised by a 'has been' staff.

32. It is an ancient political vehicle, held together by soft soap and hunger and with front-seat drivers and back-seat drivers contradicting each other in a bedlam of voices, shouting 'go right' and 'go left' at the same time.

33. A funny thing happened to me on the way to the White House...

34. 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.

36. Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.

37. I have tried to talk about the issues in this campaign... But, strangely enough, my friends, this road has been a lonely road because I never meet anybody coming the other way.

39. The Republican party makes even its young men seem old; the Democratic Party makes even its old men seem young.

45. Unreason and anti-intellectualism abominate thought. Thinking implies disagreement; and disagreement implies nonconformity; and nonconformity implies heresy; and heresy implies disloyalty - so, obviously, thinking must be stopped. But shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom.

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

50. The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal - that you can gather votes like box tops - is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.

51. There is a new America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us whether we will it or not. The new America is the sum of many small changes - a new subdivision here, a new school there, a new industry where there had been swampland - changes that add up to a broad transformation of our lives. Our task is to guide these changes. For, though change is inevitable, change for the better is a full-time job.

53. That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!

54. I'm not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.

62. Today we are plunged into a battle that is familiar to us. the enemies and the problems are the same. But the terrain is different. The world around us has changed and shifted so much we no longer recognize it.

65. We have confused the free with the free and easy.

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

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

73. Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation.

74. The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams.

79. 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.

83. There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one's convictions and not tell the people the truth.

84. The best reason I can think of for not running for President of the United States is that you have to shave twice a day.

88. Peace is the one condition of survival in this nuclear age.

89. The art of government has grown from its seeds in the tiny city-states of Greece to become the political mode of half the world. So let us dream of a world in which all states, great and small, work together for the peaceful flowering of the republic of man.

90. 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.

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

96. Saskatchewan is much like Texas - except it's more friendly to the United States.

100. The legislature is a frightening thing. To this day the state capitol building seems to me a beast ready to swallow me up; the very walls and ceilings seem to crush you as you walk through it.

101. I refuse to personally criticize President Eisenhower, I will not submit to the Republican concept of gravity.

103. I am always amazed by the resistance offered to progress, even the most innocuous progress. Imagine, if you will, jumping from one rickety bridge to another, with blind men running back and forth trying to push you off, and you will have some idea what legislating progress is like. The good news is that if you're pushed off, you can always climb back up and try again.

105. President Eisenhower continues to amaze me. He appears to be an ungainly and graceless man, but when senator Robert Taft makes a move, no matter how ridiculous, Eisenhower copies it with the skill of French mime Marcel Marceau. I haven't achieved such levels of mimicry with my own party, but I'm working on it.

107. This not the first time a war hero has gotten in my way...

109. Though Americans talk a good deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who are serious. In politics, the rare candidate who is serious, like Adlai Stevenson, is easily overwhelmed by one who is solemn, like General Eisenhower. This is probably because it is hard for most people to recognize seriousness, which is rare, especially in politics, but comfortable to endorse solemnity, which is as commonplace as jogging.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

111. He was one of the most admired men of his time - and one of the most perplexing, a paradox within himself. Twice he sought his nation's highest office; yet he always thought of the presidency as a 'dread responsibility.' He was a politician without a politician's ways; instead of grinning gamely when, during one of his campaigns, a little girl handed him a stuffed baby alligator, Stevenson could only gape and exclaim, 'For Christ's sake, what's this?' He was a man of rare humor, often expressed in self-deprecating terms. Responding to criticism that he was too intellectual, that he talked over the heads of the voters, he tossed out a Latinism: Via ovum cranium difficilis est (The way of the egghead is hard).