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date: 15 May 2025

Adlai Stevenson 1900–65
American Democratic politician 

  1. If they [the Republicans] will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
    speech during 1952 Presidential campaign; in J. B. Martin Adlai Stevenson and Illinois (1976) ch. 8
  2. I suppose flattery hurts no one, that is, if he doesn't inhale.
    television broadcast, 30 March 1952
  3. Let's talk sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains.
    speech of acceptance at the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, 26 July 1952
  4. A hungry man is not a free man.
    speech at Kasson, Minnesota, 6 September 1952
  5. There is no evil in the atom; only in men's souls.
    speech at Hartford, Connecticut, 18 September 1952
  6. In America any boy may become President and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes!
    speech in Indianapolis, 26 September 1952
  7. A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
    speech in Detroit, 7 October 1952; in Major Campaign Speeches…1952 (1953)
  8. The young man who asks you to set him one heart-beat from the Presidency of the United States.
    of Richard Nixon as Vice-Presidential nominee
    speech at Cleveland, Ohio, 23 October 1952
  9. We hear the Secretary of State boasting of his brinkmanship—the art of bringing us to the edge of the abyss.
    speech in Hartford, Connecticut, 25 February 1956; see Dulles
  10. Do you remember that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, ‘How well he spoke’, but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, ‘Let us march.’
    introducing John F. Kennedy in 1960; Bert Cochran Adlai Stevenson (1969)
  11. She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world.
    of Eleanor Roosevelt
    in New York Times 8 November 1962; see Benenson
  12. An independent is a guy who wants to take the politics out of politics.
    Bill Adler The Stevenson Wit (1966)
  13. Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that he sometimes has to eat them.
    The Wit and Wisdom of Adlai Stevenson (1965)
  14. Someone must fill the gap between platitudes and bayonets.
    Leon Harris The Fine Art of Political Wit (1965)