Adlai E. Stevenson

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“An Independent is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics.”

“The relationship of the toastmaster to speaker should be the same as that of the fan to the fan dancer. It should call attention to the subject without making any particular effort to cover it.”

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

“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.”

“If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.”

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