Adlai Stevenson

“A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.”

“A hungry man is not a free man.” [in a Sept. 6, 1952 campaign speech]

“America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact--the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality.”

“Do not... regard the critics as questionable patriots. What were Washington and Jefferson and Adams but profound critics of the colonial status quo?”

“Eggheads, unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks.”

“Flattery is all right, if you don’t inhale.”

“For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.”

“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.”

“In America, any boy may become president, and I suppose that's just one of the risks he takes.”

“Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.”

“Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff.”

“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... is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.”

“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.”

“There's something else I dislike just as much as creeping socialism, and that's galloping reaction.”

“You learn more about yourself while campaigning for just one week than in six months spent with a psychoanalyst.”