The American lawyer, Adlai Stevenson was also a well-known diplomat and politician.He was raised in Bloomington, Illinois, and he became a member of one of the oldest parties in the United States, the Democratic Party. He served in the federal government as well.Adlai Stevenson handled numerous positions in different governmental bodies and in one of the oldest political parties in the world. He was in the State Department, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Department of the Navy, and Federal Alcohol Administration. Adlai Stevenson was one of the members of the committee that established the United Nations and also represented the United States of America in the UN.Stevenson was also the Governor of Illinois, during this position he did commendable work toward improving the state highways, diminishing gambling practices across the state, and refining the state structures. He thrice fought for the presidential seat during the elections but was unsuccessful. During the 1956, Democratic National Convention, Adlai Stevenson was elected as the president.When President John Fitzgerald Kennedy came into power, he selected Adlai Stevenson as the Ambassador of the United States of America to the United Nations. Stevenson dealt with two complicated escalations during his time, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba. Adlai Stevenson also wrote and released his works, ‘The Papers Of Adlai E. Stevenson: Continuing Education And The Unfinished Business Of American Society, 1957-1961’, ‘The Alliance For Progress: A Road Map To New Achievements’, ‘The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson: Ambassador To The United Nations, 1961-1965’, and ‘Call To Greatness’.Adlai Stevenson Quotes On Civil RightsAdlai Stevenson came from a family whose political roots were substantially chasmic. So let’s take a look at what Stevenson said on civil rights.“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.““What do I believe? As an American, I believe in generosity, in liberty, in the rights of man.”- Essay in This I Believe, 1952.“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.”- Speech to the United Parents Association, quoted in the New York Times, April 6, 1958.“Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set.”- ‘Putting First Things First: A Democratic View’, January 1, 1960.“Men may be born free; they cannot be born wise; and it is the duty of the university to make the free wise.”- ‘What I Think’, 1956.“Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.”- New York City, August 27, 1952.“Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.”- 1952.“A hungry man is not a free man.”- Minnesota, September 6, 1952.“The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.”- The New York Times, January 19, 1962.“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.”- On interracial relations prepared by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, quoted in The New York Times June 22, 1964.“Every age needs men who will redeem the time by living with a vision of the things that are to be.”- ‘What I Think’, 1956.“True Patriotism, it seems to me, is based on tolerance and a large measure of humility.”- American Legion Convention, August 27, 1952.“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.”- University of Wisconsin, Madison, October 8, 1952.“The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.”- California, San Francisco, September 9, 1952.Adlai Stevenson Quotes On DemocracyAdlai Stevenson was a proponent of liberalism and equal representation. His political ideals and vision made him one of the most influential politicians in the United States of America.“I think self-examination and criticism are the great and not-so-secret weapons of democracy.““Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.”- New York City, August 28, 1952.“The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a national characteristic of the police state, not of democracy.”- In opposition to the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950.“Trust the people, trust their good sense, their decency, their fortitude, their faith. Trust them with the facts. Trust them with the great decisions.““Democracy cannot be saved by supermen, but only by the unswerving devotion and goodness of millions of little men.”- 1955.“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.““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.”- California, Los Angeles, Town Club, September 11, 1952.“As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end. Democracy is a high privilege, but it is also a heavy responsibility whose shadow stalks, although you may never walk in the sun.”- Chicago, Illinois, September 29, 1952.“We cannot be any stronger in our foreign policy for all the bombs and guns we may heap up in our arsenals than we are in the spirit which rules inside the country. Foreign policy, like a river, cannot rise above its source.““We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.““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.““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.”“On this shrunken globe, men can no longer live as strangers.”“The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty.“Adlai Stevenson Quotes On Leadership(Check out what Adlai Stevenson had to say on various topics through his quotes!)Adlai Stevenson played a crucial role in two crises that occurred in America, the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. His statesmanship has been commendable while he was the Governor of Illinois.“I believe in the infinite wisdom that envelops and embraces me and from which I take direction, purpose, strength.”- Essay in This I Believe, 1952.“It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.““The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step. So we must never neglect any work of peace within our reach, however small.““Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full-time job.““Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation.““A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.““We live in an era of revolution, the revolution of rising expectations.““All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind.”- Princeton University, March 22, 1954.“Words calculated to catch everyone may catch no one.”- Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois, July 21, 1952.“There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one’s convictions and not tell the people the truth.”- Responding to an assertion that his support for a ban on nuclear testing would probably cost him votes, as quoted in ‘As We Knew Adlai: The Stevenson Story by Twenty-two Friends’ by Edward P. Doyle, 1966.“I will make a bargain with the Republicans. If they will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.““There is a spiritual hunger in the world today - and it cannot be satisfied by better cars on longer credit terms.““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.”- American Legion Convention, August 27, 1952.“A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.”- 1952.“In matters of national security emotion is no substitute for intelligence, nor rigidity for prudence. To act coolly, intelligently, and prudently in perilous circumstances is the test of a man — and also a nation.”- Radio Address, April 11, 1955, quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, 1999.“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.”- Statement of 1956, as quoted in ‘Adlai Stevenson: A Study in Values’, Herbert Joseph Muller, 1967.Adlai Stevenson Quotes On LifeThe diplomat, politician, and lawyer, Adlai Stevenson noesis gives everybody a unique approach to looking at life and the world with a free mind.“There is no evil in the atom; only in men’s souls.““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.”- ‘What I Think’, 1956.“Ignorance is stubborn and prejudice is hard.““I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.““Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.““A beauty is a woman you notice; a charmer is one who notices you.““He who slings mud generally loses ground.““I have sometimes said that flattery is all right, Mr. President, if you don’t inhale it.”- Opening sentence of Stevenson’s first appearance at the UN as UN Ambassador, February 1, 1961.“Freedom rings where opinions clash"“The human race has improved everything, but the human race.““Law is not a profession at all, but rather a business service station and repair shop.““Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.”- Denver, Colorado, September 5, 1952.“That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.““What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is for the most part incommunicable.““In America, any boy may become president, and I suppose it’s just one of the risks he takes.““The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions.““Most of us favor free enterprise for business. Let us also favor free enterprise for the mind.““Unreason and anti-intellectualism abominate thought…. But shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom.““Our reasonableness must always be motivated by the urge to learn, to share, and to find common ground.““Let’s talk sense to the American people.”- Acceptance Speech at the Democratic Presidential Nomination, July 26, 1952.“Your days are short here; this is the last of your springs. And now in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place, touch the depths of truth, feel the hem of Heaven. You will go away with old, good friends. And don’t forget when you leave why you came.”
The American lawyer, Adlai Stevenson was also a well-known diplomat and politician.
