Top 15 Adlai Stevenson II Quotes

It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them

You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad.

I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.

Someone asked me...how it felt and I was reminded of a story that a fellow townsman of ours used to tell — Abraham Lincoln. They asked him how he felt once after an unsuccessful election. He said he felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.

It is often easier to fight for one’s principles than it is to live up to them.

A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.

In America, anybody can be president.
That's one of the risks you take.

Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.

A hungry man is not a free man.

The human race is a family. Men are brothers. All wars are civil wars.

She was the kind of person who would rather light a candle than curse the darkness.

If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain.