Adlai E. Stevenson

There is...a spiritual hunger in the world today and it cannot be satisfied...by better cars on longer credit terms.

What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is, for the most part, incommunicable.

Journalists do not live by words alone, although sometimes they have to eat them.

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

Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction.

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.

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.

Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.

The human race has improved everything, but the human race.

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.

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.

Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.

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.

The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.

To act coolly, intelligently and prudently in perilous circumstances is the test of a man - and also a nation.

We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.

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

We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace. Preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft.

Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.

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.

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.