Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction.
Adlai E. Stevenson
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Adlai E. Stevenson quotes
There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.
For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.
Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
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.
A beauty is a woman you notice; a charmer is one who notices you.
A diplomat's life is made up of three ingredients: protocol, Geritol and alcohol.
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
A hungry man is not a free man.
A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.
A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.
Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction.
After four years at the United Nations I sometimes yearn for the peace and tranquillity of a political convention.
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.
An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.
An Independent is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics.
Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full-time job.
Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.
Communism is the death of the soul. It is the organization of total conformity - in short, of tyranny - and it is committed to making tyranny universal.
Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium - and intermediate - range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no? Don't wait for the translation. Yes or no?
Do you know the difference between a beautiful woman and a charming one? A beauty is a woman you notice, a charmer is one who notices you.
Every age needs men who will redeem the time by living with a vision of the things that are to be.
Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.
Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than the freedom to stagnate.
Golf is a fine relief from the tensions of office, but we are a little tired of holding the bag.
He is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.
He who slings mud generally loses ground.
I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.
I believe that if we really want human brotherhood to spread and increase until it makes life safe and sane, we must also be certain that there is no one true faith or path by which it may spread.
I don't envy the driver and I don't think the American people will care to ride in his bus very far.
I don't want to send them to jail. I want to send them to school.
I find Paul appealing and Peale appalling.
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.
I have tried to talk about the issues in this campaign... and this has sometimes been a lonely road, because I never meet anybody coming the other way.
I think that one of the most fundamental responsibilities is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and willingly.
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.
If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
In America any boy may become President and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes.
In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.
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.
It will be helpful in our mutual objective to allow every man in America to look his neighbor in the face and see a man-not a color.
It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.
Law is not a profession at all, but rather a business service station and repair shop.
Laws are never as effective as habits.
Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
Man is a strange animal. He generally cannot read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it.
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
Nature is indifferent to the survival of the human species, including Americans.
Nature is neutral.
Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff.
Nixon is finding out there are no tails on an Eisenhower jacket.
Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.
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." (it ain't over till it's over)
On this shrunken globe, men can no longer live as strangers.
Peace is the one condition of survival in this nuclear age.
Some people approach every problem with an open mouth.
That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.
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.
The definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
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.
The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.
The general has dedicated himself so many times, he must feel like the cornerstone of a public building.
The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.
The human race has improved everything, but the human race.
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.
The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams.
The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.
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.
This the first time I ever heard it said that the crime is not the burglary, but the discovery of the burglar.
Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.
To act coolly, intelligently and prudently in perilous circumstances is the test of a man-and also a nation.
Under the wide and starry sky. Dig the grave and let me lie.
We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.
We have confused the free with the free and easy.
We mean by "politics" the people's business - the most important business there is.
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.
We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on it's vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed, for our safety, to it's security and peace. Preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft.
What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is for the most part incommunicable.
You are in the courtroom of world opinion. You have denied they exist, and I want to know if I understood you correctly. I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room!
You know, you really can't beat a household commodity-the ketchup bottle on the kitchen table.
You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news.
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