Adlai Stevenson II

Famous quotes containing the words adlai stevenson, adlai and/or stevenson:

    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.
    Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965)

    Though Americans talk a good deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who are serious. In politics, the rare candidate who is serious, like Adlai Stevenson, is easily overwhelmed by one who is solemn, like General Eisenhower. This is probably because it is hard for most people to recognize seriousness, which is rare, especially in politics, but comfortable to endorse solemnity, which is as commonplace as jogging.
    Russell Baker (b. 1925)

    Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
    Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
    And charging along like troops in a battle,
    All through the meadows the horses and cattle;
    —Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)