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Adlai Stevenson II

Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (5 February 1900 – 14 July 1965) was an American politician and statesman, noted for his skill in debate and oratory; Governor of Illinois, he was twice an unsuccessful candidate for President of the United States running against Dwight D. Eisenhower (in 1952 and 1956). Under the John F. Kennedy administration, he served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

Quotes

 * The problem of cat versus bird is as old as time. If we attempt to resolve it by legislation who knows but what we may be called upon to take sides as well in the age old problems of dog versus cat, bird versus bird, or even bird versus worm. In my opinion, the State of Illinois and its local governing bodies already have enough to do without trying to control feline delinquency. For these reasons, and not because I love birds the less or cats the more, I veto and withhold my approval from Senate Bill No. 93.
 * Vetoing a Bill that would have imposed fines on owners who allowed cats to run at large. (23 April 1949)

 * The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a national characteristic of the police state, not of democracy. The history of Soviet Russia is a modern example of this ancient practice. I must, in good conscience, protest against any unnecessary suppression of our rights as free men. We must not burn down the house to kill the rats.
 * Voicing opposition to the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950

 * Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.
 * Speech in Urbana, Illinois (1951); as quoted in Adlai's Almanac: The Wit and Wisdom of Stevenson of Illinois (1952), p. 20

 * Words calculated to catch everyone may catch no one.
 * Address to the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois. (21 July 1952); published in Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952)

 * What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for. Who leads us is less important than what leads us — what convictions, what courage, what faith — win or lose. A man doesn't save a century, or a civilization, but a militant party wedded to a principle can.
 * Address to the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois. (21 July 1952); published in Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952) p. 17

 * Let's face it. Let's talk sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions, like resistance when you're attacked, but a long, patient, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of man — war, poverty, and tyranny — and the assaults upon human dignity which are the most grievous consequences of each.
 * Acceptance speech, Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois (26 July 1952)

 * We talk a great deal about patriotism. What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility which will enable America to remain master of her power — to walk with it in serenity and wisdom, with self-respect and the respect of all mankind; a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. The dedication of a lifetime — these are words that are easy to utter, but this is a mighty assignment. For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.
 * Speech to the American Legion convention, New York City (27 August 1952); as quoted in "Democratic Candidate Adlai Stevenson Defines the Nature of Patriotism" in Lend Me Your Ears : Great Speeches In History (2004) by William Safire, p. 79 - 80

 * True Patriotism, it seems to me, is based on tolerance and a large measure of humility.
 * Speech to the American Legion convention, New York City (27 August 1952); as quoted in "Democratic Candidate Adlai Stevenson Defines the Nature of Patriotism" in Lend Me Your Ears : Great Speeches In History (2004) by William Safire, p. 80

 * The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak, of anti-communism.
 * Speech to the American Legion convention, New York City (27 August 1952); as quoted in "Democratic Candidate Adlai Stevenson Defines the Nature of Patriotism" in Lend Me Your Ears : Great Speeches In History (2004) by William Safire, p. 81

 * The strange alchemy of time has somehow converted the Democrats into the truly conservative party of this country — the party dedicated to conserving all that is best, and building solidly and safely on these foundations. The Republicans, by contrast, are behaving like the radical party — the party of the reckless and the embittered, bent on dismantling institutions which have been built solidly into our social fabric. . . . Our social-security system and our Democratic Party's sponsorship of the social reforms and advances of the past two decades — conservatism at its best. Certainly there could be nothing more conservative than to change when change is due, to reduce tensions and wants by wise changes, rather than to stand pat stubbornly, until, like King Canute, we are engulfed by relentless forces that will always go too far.
 * Statement during his 1952 presidential campaign, quoted in Unadjusted Man in the Age of Overadjustment: Where History and Literature Intersect (1956) by Peter Viereck; 2004 edition, p. 253; also quoted in his "The New Conservatism: One of Its Founders Asks What Went Wrong", The New Republic (24 September 1962)

 * 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, as quoted in Adlai Stevenson and The World: The Life of Adlai E. Stevenson (1977) by John Bartlow Martin, p. 549

 * It was always accounted a virtue in a man to love his country. With us it is now something more than a virtue. It is a necessity. When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect. Men who have offered their lives for their country know that patriotism is not the fear of something; it is the love of something.
 * Speech to the American Legion convention, New York City (27 August 1952); as quoted in "Democratic Candidate Adlai Stevenson Defines the Nature of Patriotism" in Lend Me Your Ears : Great Speeches In History (2004) by William Safire, p. 81 - 82

 * The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. But there is also, it seems to me, a moment at which democracy must prove its capacity to act. Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.
 * Speech in New York City (28 August 1952)

 * Laws are never as effective as habits.
 * Speech in New York City (28 August 1952)

 * Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
 * Speech in Denver, Colorado (5 September 1952)

 * A hungry man is not a free man.
 * Speech in Kasson, Minnesota (6 September 1952)

 * The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.
 * Speech, San Francisco, California (9 September 1952)

 * 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.
 * Campaign statement in Fresno, California (10 September 1952); earlier incidence of similar comments exist:
 * If Mr. Hughes will stop lying about me, I will stop telling the truth about him.
 * William Randolph Hearst, about Charles Evans Hughes, in 1906, as quoted in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes
 * If you will refrain from telling any lies about the Republican Party, I'll promise not to tell the truth about the Democrats.
 * Chauncey Depew, as quoted in "If Elected I Promise … "Stories and Gems of Wisdom by and About Politicians (1969) by John F. Parker

 * Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.
 * Speech to the Los Angeles Town Club, Los Angeles, California (11 September 1952); Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952), p. 31

 * In the tragic days of Mussolini, the trains in Italy ran on time as never before and I am told in their way, their horrible way, that the Nazi concentration-camp system in Germany was a model of horrible efficiency. The really basic thing in government is policy. Bad administration, to be sure, can destroy good policy, but good administration can never save bad policy.
 * Speech to the Los Angeles Town Club, Los Angeles, California (11 September 1952); Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952), p. 36

 * There is no evil in the atom, only in men's souls.
 * Speech in Hartford, Connecticut (18 September 1952)

 * We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.
 * Speech, Richmond, Virginia (20 September 1952)

 * To remember the loneliness, the fear and the insecurity of men who once had to walk alone in huge factories, beside huge machines—to realize that labor unions have meant new dignity and pride to millions of our countrymen—human companionship on the job, and music in the home—to be able to see what larger pay checks mean, not to a man as an employee, but as a husband and as a father—to know these things is to understand what American labor means.
 * Speech (22 September 1952), reported in Report of Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor, Vol. 71 (1952)

 * In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes.
 * Speech in Indianapolis, Indiana (26 September 1952)
 * Often misquoted as "In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take."

 * As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end. Democracy is a high privilege, but it is also a heavy responsibility whose shadow stalks, although you may never walk in the sun.
 * Speech in Chicago, Illinois (29 September 1952)

 * Nature is indifferent to the survival of the human species, including Americans.
 * Radio address (29 September 1952)

 * Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them.
 * Speech in Columbus, Ohio (3 October 1952); quoted in The International Thesaurus of Quotations (1970) edited by Rhoda Thomas Tripp, p. 429

 * The Republicans have a "me too" candidate running on a "yes but" platform, advised by a "has been" staff.
 * Speech in Fort Dodge, Iowa (5 October 1952), as quoted in The Wit and Wisdom of Adlai Stevenson (1965) compiled by by Edward Hanna and Henry H. Hicks, p. 33

 * My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
 * Speech in Detroit, Michigan (7 October 1952)

 * Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.
 * Speech at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (8 October 1952)

 * If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain.
 * Speech at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (8 October 1952)

 * I do not believe it is man's destiny to compress this once boundless earth into a small neighborhood, the better to destroy it. Nor do I believe it is in the nature of man to strike eternally at the image of himself, and therefore of God. I profoundly believe that there is on this horizon, as yet only dimly perceived, a new dawn of conscience. In that purer light, people will come to see themselves in each other, which is to say they will make themselves known to one another by their similarities rather than by their differences. Man's knowledge of things will begin to be matched by man's knowledge of self. The significance of a smaller world will be measured not in terms of military advantage, but in terms of advantage for the human community. It will be the triumph of the heartbeat over the drumbeat.''' These are my beliefs and I hold them deeply, but they would be without any inner meaning for me unless I felt that they were also the deep beliefs of human beings everywhere. And the proof of this, to my mind, is the very existence of the United Nations.
 * Speech in Springfield Illinois (24 October 1952)

 * The early years of the United Nations have been difficult ones, but what did we expect? That peace would drift down from the skies like soft snow? That there would be no ordeal, no anguish, no testing, in this greatest of all human undertakings? Any great institution or idea must suffer its pains of birth and growth. We will not lose faith in the United Nations. We see it as a living thing and we will work and pray for its full growth and development. We want it to become what it was intended to be — a world society of nations under law, not merely law backed by force, but law backed by justice and popular consent.
 * Speech in Springfield Illinois (24 October 1952)

 * I have said what I meant and meant what I said. I have not done as well as I should like to have done, but I have done my best, frankly and forthrightly; no man can do more, and you are entitled to no less.
 * Speech, (3 November 1952) as quoted in "The Graceful Loser" in Time (23 July 1965)

 * It is an ancient political vehicle, held together by soft soap and hunger and with front-seat drivers and back-seat drivers contradicting each other in a bedlam of voices, shouting "go right" and "go left" at the same time.
 * On the Republican Party, as quoted in news summaries (15 November 1952) and Speeches of Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1952), p. 110

 * A funny thing happened to me on the way to the White House...
 * Speech in Washington D.C. (13 December 1952)

 * What do I believe? As an American I believe in generosity, in liberty, in the rights of man. These are social and political faiths that are part of me, as they are, I suppose, part of all of us. Such beliefs are easy to express. But part of me too is my relation to all life, my religion. And this is not so easy to talk about. Religious experience is highly intimate and, for me, ready words are not at hand. I am profoundly aware of the magnitude of the universe, that all is ruled by law, including my finite person. I believe in the infinite wisdom that envelops and embraces me and from which I take direction, purpose, strength.
 * Essay in This I Believe : 2 (1952) edited by Edward R. Murrow, p. 142

 * A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.
 * Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952), p. 39

 * Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.
 * Speeches of Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1952), p. 99

 * I have tried to talk about the issues in this campaign... But, strangely enough, my friends, this road has been a lonely road because I never meet anybody coming the other way.
 * Speeches of Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1952), p. 121

 * Well, speaking as a Christian, I would like to say that I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling.
 * Opening sentence of remarks to a Baptist convention in Texas during 1952 Presidential campaign. In his introduction the host had said that Stevenson had been asked to speak "just as a courtesy, because Dr. Norman Vincent Peale has already instructed us to vote for your opponent." From Humor in the White House: The Wit of Five American Presidents (2001) by Arthur A. Sloane.

 * The Republican party makes even its young men seem old; the Democratic Party makes even its old men seem young.
 * Comparing Richard Nixon to Alben Barkley during the 1952 presidential race, as quoted in Richard Nixon: A Political and Personal Portrait (1959) by Earl Mazo, Chapter 7

 * Many of the world’s troubles are not due just to Russia or communism. They would be with us in any event because we live in an era of revolution—the revolution of rising expectations. In Asia, the masses now count for something. Tomorrow, they will count for more. And, for better or for worse, the future belongs to those who understand the hopes and fears of masses in ferment. The new nations want independence, including the inalienable able right to make their own mistakes. The people want respect—and something to eat every day. And they want something better for their children.
 * Look, p. 46 (22 September 1953)

 * He who slings mud generally loses ground.
 * Statement quoted in news summaries (11 January 1954); as quoted in Best Quotes of '54, '55, '56 (1957) edited by James Beasley Simpson, p. 58

 * What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is, for the most part, incommunicable. The laws, the aphorisms, the generalizations, the universal truths, the parables and the old saws — all of the observations about life which can be communicated handily in ready, verbal packages — are as well known to a man at twenty who has been attentive as to a man at fifty. He has been told them all, he has read them all, and he has probably repeated them all before he graduates from college; but he has not lived them all. What he knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty boils down to something like this: The knowledge he has acquired with age is not the knowledge of formulas, or forms of words, but of people, places, actions — a knowledge not gained by words but by touch, sight, sound, victories, failures, sleeplessness, devotion, love — the human experiences and emotions of this earth and of oneself and other men; and perhaps, too, a little faith, and a little reverence for things you cannot see.
 * Address at Princeton University, "The Educated Citizen" (22 March 1954)

 * All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind. Don't be afraid of being out of tune with your environment, and above all pray God that you are not afraid to live, to live hard and fast. To my way of thinking it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that count in the long run. You'll have more fun, you'll do more and you'll get more, you'll give more satisfaction the more you know, the more you have worked, and the more you have lived. For yours is a great adventure at a stirring time in the annals of men.
 * Address at Princeton University, "The Educated Citizen" (22 March 1954).
 * Variant: It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts.
 * "If I Were Twenty-One" in Coronet (December 1955).
 * This has also been paraphrased "What matters most is not the years in your life, but the life in your years" and misattributed to Abraham Lincoln and Mae West

 * Unreason and anti-intellectualism abominate thought. Thinking implies disagreement; and disagreement implies nonconformity; and nonconformity implies heresy; and heresy implies disloyalty—so, obviously, thinking must be stopped. But shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom.
 * A Call to Greatness (1954), p. 99

 * In matters of national security emotion is no substitute for intelligence, nor rigidity for prudence. To act coolly, intelligently and prudently in perilous circumstances is the test of a man — and also a nation.
 * Radio address (11 April 1955); as quoted in The World's Great Speeches (1999) edited by Lewis Copeland, Lawrence W. Lamm, and Stephen J. McKenna

 * We mean by "politics" the people's business — the most important business there is.
 * Speech in Chicago, Illinois (19 November 1955)

 * Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses … yet we are all children of the same Judaic-Christian civilization, with much the same religious background basically.
 * As quoted in The Political Thought of Adlai E. Stevenson (1955) by William Robert Latimer, p. 89

 * We hear the Secretary of State boasting of his brinkmanship — the art of bringing us to the edge of the abyss.
 * Referring to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in a speech in Hartford, Connecticut (25 February 1956)

 * 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.
 * Speech at the Democratic National Convention (18 August 1956)

 * There is a new America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us whether we will it or not. The new America is the sum of many small changes — a new subdivision here, a new school there, a new industry where there had been swampland — changes that add up to a broad transformation of our lives. Our task is to guide these changes. For, though change is inevitable, change for the better is a full-time job.
 * Presidential campaign address, Miami, Florida, (September 1956), as quoted in Best Quotes of '54, '55, '56 (1957) edited by James Beasley Simpson

 * Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland. But I say to you that it is not America.
 * Speech in Los Angeles California (27 October 1956), as quoted in The New America (1971), edited by Seymour E. Harris, John B. Martin, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., p. 249

 * 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.
 * Statement of 1956, as quoted in Adlai Stevenson : A Study in Values (1967) by Herbert Joseph Muller, p. 174

 * I have learned that In quiet places, reason abounds, that in quiet people there is vision and purpose, that many things are revealed to the humble that are hidden from the great.
 * As quoted in My Brother Adlai (1956) by Elizabeth Stevenson Ives and Hildegarde Dolson

 * Fill the moral vacuum, the rational vacuum, we must; reconvert a population soaked in the spirit of materialism to the spirit of humanism we must, or bit by bit we too will take on the visage of our enemy, the neo-heathens.
 * What I Think (1956), p. 54

 * Men may be born free; they cannot be born wise; and it is the duty of the university to make the free wise.
 * What I Think (1956), p. 55

 * Every age needs men who will redeem the time by living with a vision of the things that are to be.
 * What I Think (1956), p. 142

 * We live in a time when automation is ushering in a second industrial revolution, and the powers of the atom are about to be harnessed for ever greater production. We live at a time when even the ancient spectre of hunger is vanishing. This is the age of abundance! Never in history has there been such an opportunity to show what we can do to improve the quality of living now that the old, terrible, grinding anxieties of daily bread, of shelter and raiment are disappearing.
 * Statement at the Democratic National Convention, as quoted in Best Quotes of '54, '55, '56 (1957) edited by James Beasley Simpson, p. 58; later published in The New America (1957), p. 7

 * 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.
 * Speech to the United Parents Association, as quoted in The New York Times (6 April 1958)

 * Respect for intellectual excellence, the restoration of vigor and discipline to our ideas of study, curricula which aim at strengthening intellectual fiber and stretching the power of young minds, personal commitment and responsibility — these are the preconditions of educational recovery in America today; and, I believe, they have always been the preconditions of happiness and sanity for the human race.
 * Speech to the United Parents Association, as quoted in The New York Times (6 April 1958)

 * You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news.
 * Commencement address at Michigan State University The New York Times (9 June 1958)

 * Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set.
 * "Putting First Things First", Foreign Affairs (January 1960)

 * With the supermarket as our temple and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fire the world with an irresistible vision of America's exalted purpose and inspiring way of life?
 * "To American Aims," Life magazine (30 May 1960)

 * The elephant has a thick skin, a head full of ivory, and as everyone who has seen a circus parade knows, proceeds best by grasping the tail of its predecessor.
 * Comment on the 1960 Richard Nixon presidential campaign and the Republican symbol, in news summaries (30 August 1960), as quoted in The New Language of Politics: An Anecdotal Dictionary of Catchwords, Slogans and Political Usage (1968) by William Safire

 * We have confused the free with the free and easy.
 * Putting First Things (1960)

 * The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.
 * As quoted in The New York Times (19 January 1962)

 * She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world.
 * Remark upon learning of the death of Eleanor Roosevelt, drawing upon the motto of the Christopher Society: "It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness." ; quoted in The New York Times (8 November 1962)

 * You are in the courtroom of world opinion…. All right, sir, let me ask you one simple question: Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no — don't wait for the translation — yes or no?" [The Soviet representative refuses to answer.] "You can answer yes or no. You have denied they exist. I want to know if I understood you correctly. I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that's your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room.
 * To Soviet U.N. Ambassador Valerian A. Zorin in the United Nations Security Council during the Cuban missile crisis (25 October 1962)

 * Happily for us, students have not tried to overthrow the Government of the United States, but they certainly are making their views felt in public affairs. I think especially of the participation of American students in the great struggle to advance civil and human rights in America. Indeed, even a jail sentence is no longer a dishonor but a proud achievement.
 * Commencement address at Colby College, Waterville, Maine (June 7, 1964), reported in The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson (1979), vol. 8, p. 567

 * It will be helpful in our mutual objective to allow every man in America to look his neighbor in the face and see a man — not a color.
 * Foreword to booklet on interracial relations prepared by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, as quoted in The New York Times (22 June 1964)

 * For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.
 * Response to a heckler asking him to state his beliefs, as quoted in Time magazine (1 November 1963)

 * After four years at the United Nations I sometimes yearn for the peace and tranquillity of a political convention.
 * As quoted in The New York Times (14 August 1964)

 * She thought of herself as an ugly duckling, but she walked in beauty in the ghettos of the world, bringing with her the reminder of her beloved St. Francis, "It is in the giving that we receive." And wherever she walked beauty was forever there.
 * Paying tribute to the late Eleanor Roosevelt in a speech to the Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey (27 August 1964); as quoted in Adlai Stevenson (1966) by Lillian Ross, p. 28; reproduced in America's Political Dynasties: From Adams to Clinton (2015) by Stephen Hess, p. 203

 * A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.
 * Quoted in The Fine Art of Political Wit by Leon Harris (1964)

 * Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation.
 * Quoted in The Fine Art of Political Wit by Leon Harris (1964)

 * The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams.
 * Quoted in The Fine Art of Political Wit by Leon Harris (1964); this statement is derived from one by humorist Don Marquis

 * An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.
 * Quoted in The Fine Art of Political Wit by Leon Harris (1964)
 * Quoted in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations by Robert Andrews (1993)
 * "Newspaper editors are people who separate the wheat from the chaff and then print the chaff." (variation)
 * "Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and print the chaff." (variation)
 * "Journalists separate the wheat from the chaff... and then print the chaff." (variation)
 * This statement has also been attributed to an earlier usage by Elbert Hubbard.

 * The great aristocrat, the beloved leader, the profound historian, the gifted painter, the superb politician, the lord of language, the orator, the wit—yes, and the dedicated bricklayer—behind all of them was a simple man of faith, steadfast in defeat, generous in victory, resigned in age, trusting in a loving providence, and committing his achievements and his triumphs to a higher power.
 * Eulogizing Winston Churchill, Washington, D.C. (28 January 1965); as quoted in "Stevenson Delivers Eulogy to Churchill; 'Simple Faith in God' Cited" by the Associated Press, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (29 January 1965); reproduced in Adlai Stevenson (1966) by Lillian Ross, p. 47

 * A diplomat's life is made up of three ingredients: protocol, Geritol and alcohol.
 * As quoted in The New York Times Magazine (7 February 1965)

 * 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. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave — to the ancient enemies of man — half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.
 * Speech to the UN Economic and Social Council, Geneva, Switzerland (9 July 1965)

 * On this shrunken globe men can no longer live as strangers. Men can war against each other as hostile neighbors, as we are determined not to do; or they can co-exist in frigid isolation, as we are doing. But our prayer is that men everywhere will learn, finally, to live as brothers, to respect each other's differences, to heal each other's wounds, to promote each other's progress, and to benefit from each other's knowledge.
 * As quoted in Man of Honor, Man of Peace : The Life and Words of Adlai Stevenson (1965) by Robert L. Polley, p. 61

 * Because we believe in the free mind we are also fighting those who, in the name of anti-Communism, would assail the community of freedom itself.
 * As quoted in Portrait — Adlai E. Stevenson : Politician, Diplomat, Friend (1965) by Alden Whitman

 * You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad.
 * Address to the State Committee of the Liberal Party in New York City, Faith in Liberalism (pdf) (28 August 1952)

 * A beauty is a woman you notice; a charmer is one who notices you.
 * As quoted in The Stevenson Wit (1965) edited by Bill Adler

 * There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.
 * As quoted in The Stevenson Wit (1965) edited by Bill Adler

 * There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one's convictions and not tell the people the truth.
 * Responding to an assertion that his support for a ban on nuclear testing would probably cost him votes, as quoted in As We Knew Adlai : The Stevenson Story by Twenty-two Friends (1966) by Edward P. Doyle, p. 185

 * The best reason I can think of for not running for President of the United States is that you have to shave twice a day.
 * As quoted in Bartlett's Unfamiliar Quotations (1971) by Leonard Louis Levinson, p. 237

 * I am a lawyer. I think that one of the most fundamental responsibilities, not only of every citizen, but particularly of lawyers, is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and willingly, and it will be a very unhappy day for Anglo-Saxon justice when a man, even a man in public life, is too timid to state what he knows and what he has heard about a defendant in a criminal trial for fear that defendant might be convicted. That would to me be the ultimate timidity.
 * On why he gave testimony on behalf of Alger Hiss, as quoted in Adlai Stevenson of Illinois : The Life of Adlai E. Stevenson (1976) by John Bartlow Martin, p. 552; also in "History Remembers…Adlai Stevenson" by Maureen Zebian in The Epoch Times (4 November 2004)

 * 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.
 * As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 508; this begins with a phrase derived from one in the Tao Te Ching, by Laozi

 * Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction.
 * As quoted in Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982) by Jonathon Green

 * Peace is the one condition of survival in this nuclear age.
 * As quoted in Seeds of Peace : A Catalogue of Quotations (1986) by Jeanne Larson and Madge Micheels, p. 203

 * The art of government has grown from its seeds in the tiny city-states of Greece to become the political mode of half the world. So let us dream of a world in which all states, great and small, work together for the peaceful flowering of the republic of man.
 * As quoted in Seeds of Peace : A Catalogue of Quotations (1986) by Jeanne Larson and Madge Micheels, p. 265

 * I can't say that I love it with a fierce passion — indeed as a profession it's rather disappointing since it is not a profession at all, but rather a business service station and repair shop.
 * On being a lawyer, as quoted by Claire Birge in The Stevensons : A Biography of an American Family (1997) by Jean H. Baker, p. 262

 * Some people approach every problem with an open mouth.
 * As quoted in The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations (1998) by Connie Robertson.
 * Similar statements by others:
 * Mr. Hogg observed facetiously that interpreters were rather like politicians: they are people who approach every problem with an open mouth.
 * Quintin Hogg, as quoted in Annual Review of United Nations Affairs (1949) by Clyde Eagleton, p. 136.
 * Modern diplomats approach every problem with an open mouth.
 * Arthur J. Goldberg, as quoted in Affronts, Insults and Indignities (1975) by Morris Mandel

 * An Independent is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics.
 * As quoted in The Quotable Politician (2003) by William B. Whitman, p. 36

 * It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.
 * As quoted in Born to Run : Origins of the Political Career (2003) by Ronald Keith Gaddie, p. 119

 * Never run against a war hero.
 * Response when asked if he had any advice to give to a young politician, quoted in "History Remembers…Adlai Stevenson" by Maureen Zebian in The Epoch Times (4 November 2004)

 * The whole basis of the United Nations is the right of all nations great or small — to have weight, to have a vote, to be attended to, to be a part of the twentieth century.
 * As quoted in "The Bolton Embarrassment" in The Nation (1 August 2005)

 * 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.
 * Quoted in "Major Campaign Speeches of Adlai E. Stevenson" (1952), Random House. Republished in The New York Times, "Books of the Times", by Charles Poore, April 20, 1953, p. 23

 * Whenever I hear one of these old guard leaders on the other side talking about cutting taxes, when he knows it means weakening the nation, I always think of that story about the tired old capitalist who was driving alone in his car one day, and finally, he said "James, drive over the bluff; I want to commit suicide."
 * "A whistle-stop: Ypsilanti, Michigan," Major Campaign Speeches of Adlai E. Stevenson, 1952, p. 210 (1953)

 * Ignorance is stubborn and prejudice dies hard.
 * According to "The Home Book of American Quotations" (1967), by Bruce Bohle, Stevenson said this in an address to the United Nations on October 1, 1963

 * I have sometimes said that flattery is all right, Mr. President, if you don't inhale it.
 * Opening sentence of Stevenson's first appearance at the UN as UN Ambassador, February 1, 1961. From "Looking Outward", by Adlai Stevenson, p. 3

 * Some war hero is always getting in my way.
 * Attributed to Stevenson by Harry Ashmore of the Arkansas Gazette and entered by William Fulbright in the Congressional Record for July 22, 1965. According to Ashmore, Stevenson said this when he was blocked by a motorcade for Charles de Gaulle

 * Gentlemen, there is business before your house and I propose to get right to it, obeying, as far as I can, what seems to me becoming to be known as the Republican law of gravity.
 * Address to the AFL Convention in New York City, transcribed in The New York Times, September 23, 1952. In context, Stevenson was saying that the Republicans were humorless, in contrast to his own sense of humor. This quote resembles the unsourced and confusing version, "I refuse to personally criticize President Eisenhower, I will not submit to the Republican concept of gravity."

 * I think that one of our most important tasks is to convince others that there's nothing to fear in difference; that difference, in fact, is one of the healthiest and most invigorating of human characteristics without which life would become meaningless. Here lies the power of the liberal way: not in making the whole world Unitarian, but in helping ourselves and others to see some of the possibilities inherent in viewpoints other than one's own; in encouraging the free interchange of ideas; in welcoming fresh approaches to the problems of life; in urging the fullest, most vigorous use of critical self-examination.
 * As quoted in Challenge of a Liberal Faith (1988), by George N. Marshall, Ch. 3 : A Contemporary Religion, p. 34

Disputed

 * Freedom rings where opinions clash.
 * Variations of this quote are often attributed to Stevenson without a date or location for the remark. Two early occurrences are in a Congressional hearing on November 13, 1985, where Stevenson was quoted by Representative Ted Weiss ("Limits on the Dissemination of Information by the Department of Education" (1986), published by the GPO); and an article dated June 4, 1989 by Sue Ann Wood in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ("Write Editor, Readers Urged"). No source closer to Stevenson has been found.

 * That's not enough, madam; we need a majority!
 * Supposed response to a woman who called out to him: "Governor, you have the vote of every thinking person!" during one of his presidential campaigns. This quote has appeared with several variations in dozens of books and newspaper articles at least since the 1970s. One of the earlier references is in a book review article by Robert Sherrill in The New York Times, "Titles in the Running for 1972", February 13, 1972. No source closer to Stevenson has been found, in particular none that names a witness nor the date or location of the remark.

 * Saskatchewan is much like Texas — except it's more friendly to the United States.
 * This was attributed to Stevenson without reference in 1001 Greatest Things Ever Said About Texas (2006) by Donna Ingham, p. 92. It was also attributed without reference in "Reporters' Notebook", The Buffalo News, September 24, 1992. No closer connection to Stevenson has been found.

Misattributed

 * The human race has improved everything but the human race.
 * In "Wages are Going Lower!" (1951), William Joseph Baxter wrote, "One might almost say that the human race seems to have improved everything except people." Variations of this quote have appeared since both with and without attribution to Adlai Stevenson, but no documented connection to Stevenson is known.

 * That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.
 * John Stuart Mill, as quoted by Stevenson in Call to Greatness (1954), p. 102; this has also been misquoted as "That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another."

 * Man is a strange animal. He generally cannot read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it.
 * The 1957 Ford Almanac has the quote "It's too late to read the handwriting on the wall when your back's up against it", attributed to "Anon." The quote appeared in several variations afterwards, for instance in an essay by Meredith Thring in Nature Magazine in 1965. It began to be attributed without context to Stevenson in the 1970s. According to "Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy" by Porter McKeever (p. 566), Stevenson made this remark "with increasing frequency in the final months of his life"; but Stevenson died in 1965 and this book does not give a precise reference. Absent better attestation, Stevenson either used the quote from elsewhere or the association with Stevenson is a mistake.

Quotes about Stevenson

 * Sorted alphabetically by author or source

 * 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 in "Why Being Serious Is Hard" in So This Is Depravity (1980)

 * Moving among wretched people in mean places, as I often saw him do, he had the impulses of a saint but not the serenity.
 * Alistair Cooke, Six Men (1977).

 * Adlai Stevenson squats to piss.
 * Lyndon B. Johnson, as quoted in America's Queen : The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (2001) by Sarah Bradford

 * He was one of the most admired men of his time — and one of the most perplexing, a paradox within himself. Twice he sought his nation's highest office; yet he always thought of the presidency as a "dread responsibility." He was a politician without a politician's ways; instead of grinning gamely when, during one of his campaigns, a little girl handed him a stuffed baby alligator, Stevenson could only gape and exclaim, "For Christ's sake, what's this?" He was a man of rare humor, often expressed in self-deprecating terms. Responding to criticism that he was too intellectual, that he talked over the heads of the voters, he tossed out a Latinism: Via ovum cranium difficilis est (The way of the egghead is hard).
 * "The Graceful Loser" in Time magazine (23 July 1965). The term "egg-head" was used as a pejorative for Stevenson and his supporters.

 * He had that quality for which the Africans, who know how to appreciate it, have found a special term. "Nommo" is the Bantu word for the gift of making life rather larger and more vivid for everyone else.
 * Barbara Ward, British economist, quoted in As We Knew Adlai : The Stevenson Story by Twenty-two Friends (1966) by Edward P. Doyle, p. 212

title: Adlai Stevenson II


text:
Charles de Gaulle

Charles-André-Joseph-Marie de Gaulle (22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970), in France commonly referred to as le général de Gaulle, was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 in order to restore democracy in France. In 1958, he came out of retirement when appointed President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) by President René Coty. He rewrote the Constitution of France and founded the Fifth Republic after approval by referendum. He was elected President of France later that year, a position to which he was reelected in 1965 and held until his resignation in 1969.

Le Fil de l'épée (1932)

 * Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak.
 * Rien ne rehausse l'autorité mieux que le silence, splendeur des forts et refuge des faibles.

 * It is better to have a bad method than to have none.
 * Il vaut mieux avoir une méthode mauvaise plutôt que de n'en avoir aucune.

 * Character is the virtue of hard times.
 * Le caractère, vertu des temps difficiles.

Vers l’armée de métier (1934)

 * The sword is the axis of the world and grandeur cannot be divided.
 * L'épée est l'axe du monde et la grandeur ne se divise pas.

 * Nothing great is done without great men, and they are great because they wanted it.
 * On ne fait rien de grand sans de grands hommes, et ceux-ci le sont pour l'avoir voulu.

La France et son armée (1938)

 * France was built with swords. The fleur-de-lis, symbol of national unity, is only the image of a spear with three pikes.
 * La France fut faite à coups d'épée. La fleur de lys, symbole d'unité nationale, n'est que l'image d'un javelot à trois lances.

 * The desire of privilege and the taste of equality are the dominant and contradictory passions of the French of all times.
 * Le désir du privilège et le goût de l'égalité, passions dominantes et contradictoires des Français de toute époque.

1940s

 * France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war.
 * La France a perdu une bataille, mais la France n'a pas perdu la guerre.
 * Poster À tous les Français (To All Frenchmen), 3 August 1940.
 * À tous les Français was designed and displayed in London to accompany the Appel du 18 juin (Appeal of 18 June) following defeat at the Battle of France. The pair are considered to be the founding texts of the Résistance.

 * At the root of our civilization, there is the freedom of each person of thought, of belief, of opinion, of work, of leisure.
 * A la base de notre civilisation, il y a la liberté de chacun dans sa pensée, ses croyances, ses opinions, son travail, ses loisirs.
 * Speech, November 25 1941. Quoted in de Gaulle: "La France n'a pas perdu la guerre: discours et messages", pg 114

 * Let us be firm, pure and faithful; at the end of our sorrow, there is the greatest glory of the world, that of the men who did not give in.
 * Soyons fermes, purs et fidèles ; au bout de nos peines, il y a la plus grande gloire du monde, celle des hommes qui n'ont pas cédé.
 * Speech, July 14 1943.

 * I am retiring. I have a mission, and it is coming to an end … France may still one day need an image that is pure. She must be left this image. If Joan of Arc had married, she would no longer have been Joan of Arc.
 * Said to Pierre Bertaux in 1944, as recounted in The Atlantic, November 1960.

 * It is unnecessary, for the Republic has never ceased to exist. I was the Republic.
 * Reply in August 1944 to a statement of regret that the windows of the Hotel de Ville in Paris were not opened for the crowd outside cheering the reestablishment of the Republic. Quoted in Atlantic'', November 1960.

 * Now she is like the others.
 * Maintenant, elle est comme les autres.
 * Spoken at the funeral of his daughter Anne, who had Down Syndrome, February 1948. Quoted in De Gaulle by Julian Jackson

Background Information
General de Gaulle was the de facto leader of the Free French Forces which had escaped to London in World War II. Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, a hero of world War I, had signed an armistice (agreement to end fighting) with the invading forces of Nazi Germany, and led the Nazi-collaborating government of Vichy France in the south. The Nazis had occupied the north of France. De Gaulle was opposed to surrender and had left France on June 15, 1940 after Pétain made clear he wanted to do so.

Three days later, de Gaulle obtained special permission from Winston Churchill to broadcast a speech via BBC Radio over France, despite the British Cabinet's efforts to block the broadcast. In the speech, de Gaulle reminded the French people that the British Empire and the United States of America would support them in an effort to retake their land from the Nazis. On June 18, 1940, at 19:00, de Gaulle's voice was broadcast nationwide.

Speech of June 18

 * "The leaders who, for many years, were at the head of French armies, have formed a government. This government, alleging our armies to be undone, agreed with the enemy to stop fighting. Of course, we were subdued by the mechanical, ground and air forces of the enemy. Infinitely more than their number, it was the tanks, the airplanes, the tactics of the Germans which made us retreat. It was the tanks, the airplanes, the tactics of the Germans that surprised our leaders to the point to bring them there where they are today.

 * "But has the last word been said? Must hope disappear? Is defeat final? No!

 * "Believe me, I speak to you with full knowledge of the facts and tell you that nothing is lost for France. The same means that overcame us can bring us to a day of victory. For France is not alone! She is not alone! She is not alone! She has a vast Empire behind her. She can align with the British Empire that holds the sea and continues the fight. She can, like England, use without limit the immense industry of the United States.

 * "This war is not limited to the unfortunate territory of our country. This war is not finished by the battle of France. This war is a world-wide war. All the faults, all the delays, all the suffering, do not prevent there to be, in the world, all the necessary means to one day crush our enemies. Vanquished today by mechanical force, we will be able to overcome in the future by a superior mechanical force.

 * "The destiny of the world is here. I, General de Gaulle, currently in London, invite the officers and the French soldiers who are located in British territory or who would come there, with their weapons or without their weapons, I invite the engineers and the special workers of armament industries who are located in British territory or who would come there, to put themselves in contact with me.

 * "Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished. Tomorrow, as today, I will speak on Radio London."

1950s

 * A foreign military leader whose daring was feared by those who profited by it.
 * On General Douglas MacArthur (1951). De Gaulle said MacArthur's critics should "pay deserved tribute to the legendary service of a great soldier". Quoted in American Caesar by William Manchester.

 * All my life, I have had a certain idea of France.
 * Toute ma vie, je me suis fait une certaine idée de la France.
 * Opening sentence of his Mémoires de guerre (1954).

 * Politics, when it is an art and a service, not an exploitation, is about acting for an ideal through realities.
 * La politique, quand elle est un art et un service, non point une exploitation, c'est une action pour un idéal à travers des réalités.
 * Press conference, June 30 1955. Quoted in "Le Général de Gaulle et la construction de l'Europe" (1967), pg 33.

 * I am a man who belongs to no-one and who belongs to everyone.
 * Je suis un homme qui n'appartient à personne et qui appartient à tout le monde.
 * Press conference, 19 May 1958. Quoted in "Carnets secrets de la politique" (1958) by Jean Raymond Tournoux.

 * Why do you think that at 67 I would start a career as a dictator?
 * Pourquoi voulez-vous qu'à 67 ans je commence une carrière de dictateur ?
 * Press conference, 19 May 1958. De Gaulle was changing the constitution to make government more efficient, after decades of impotent parliamentary regime, and he mocked journalists who claimed he was establishing a dictatorship.

 * I have understood you!
 * Je vous ai compris !
 * Said before the population of Algiers after they had called upon him to take power, June 4, 1958.
 * "in the whole of Algeria there is only [one] category of inhabitant: there are none here but fully-fledged Frenchmen, fully-fledged Frenchmen with the same rights and the same duties."
 * Eh bien ! de tout cela, je prends acte au nom de la France et je déclare, qu’à partir d’aujourd’hui, la France considère que, dans toute l’Algérie, il n’y a qu’une seule catégorie d’habitants : il n’y a que des Français à part entière, des Français à part entière, avec les mêmes droits et les mêmes devoirs.
 * Original French

 * It's very good that there are yellow French people, black French people, brown French people. They show that France is open to all races and that it has a universal vocation. But on the condition that they remain a small minority. Otherwise, France would no longer be France. We are above all a European people of white race, Greek and Latin culture and Christian religion. Let's not tell stories! Have you gone to see the Muslims? Did you look at them with their turbans and their djellabas? You see clearly that they are not French. Those who advocate integration have the brains of hummingbirds, even if they are very learned. Try to incorporate oil and vinegar. Shake the bottle. After a while, they will separate again. Arabs are Arabs, French are French. Do you believe that the French body can absorb ten million Muslims, who tomorrow will be twenty million and the day after tomorrow forty? If we integrate, if all the Arabs and Berbers of Algeria were considered French, how would we prevent them from settling in mainland France, when the standard of living is so much higher there? My village would no longer be called Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, but Colombey-les-Deux-Mosqués!
 * C'est très bien qu'il y ait des Français jaunes, des Français noirs, des Français bruns. Ils montrent que la France est ouverte à toutes les races et qu'elle a une vocation universelle. Mais à condition qu'ils restent une petite minorité. Sinon, la France ne serait plus la France. Nous sommes quand même avant tout un peuple européen de race blanche, de culture grecque et latine et de religion chrétienne. Qu'on ne se raconte pas d'histoire! Les musulmans, vous êtes allés les voir? Vous les avez regardés avec leurs turbans et leurs djellabas? Vous voyez bien que ce ne sont pas des Français. Ceux qui pronent l'intégration ont une cervelle de colibri, même s'ils sont très savants. Essayez d'intégrer de l'huile et du vinaigre. Agitez la bouteille. Au bout d'un moment ils se sépareront de nouveau. Les Arabes sont des Arabes, les Français sont des Français. Vous croyez que le corps français peut absorber dix millions de musulmans, qui demain seront vingt millions et après-demain quarante? Si nous faisons l'intégration, si tous les Arabes et Berbères d'Algérie étaient considérés comme Français, comment les empêcherait-on de venir s'installer en métropole, alors que le niveau de vie y est tellement plus élevé? Mon village ne s'appellerait plus Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, mais Colombey-les-Deux-Mosquées!
 * 5 March 1959, conversation with Alain Peyrefitte. Quoted in "It was De Gaulle" ("C'était de Gaulle"), Volume 1, 1994, pg 52. Editions de Fallois et Fayard.

 * Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world.
 * ''Oui, c'est l'Europe, depuis l'Atlantique jusqu'à l'Oural, c'est toute l'Europe, qui décidera du destin du monde.
 * 23 November 1959, Strasbourg. The phrase shown in bold is the most often quoted excerpt. De Gaulle was expressing his vision of Europe's future.

Mémoires de guerre (1954, 1956, 1959)

 * Anything can happen someday, even that an act conforming to honour and honesty can end up, at the end of the line, as a good political decision.
 * Tout peut, un jour, arriver, même qu'un acte conforme à l'honneur et à l'honnêteté apparaisse en fin de compte, comme un bon placement politique.

 * The leader is always alone before bad fates.
 * Toujours le chef est seul en face du mauvais destin.

 * Difficulty attracts a man of character, for it is by embracing it that he fulfills himself.
 * La difficulté attire l'homme de caractère, car c'est en l'étreignant qu'il se réalise lui-même.

 * The cabinet has no propositions to make, but orders to give.
 * Le gouvernement n'a pas de propositions à faire, mais des ordres à donner.
 * Secretary of State De Gaulle so replied, in early June 1940, to Admiral Darlan, whom he was asking to transfer what was left of the French army to North Africa

 * France cannot be France without greatness.
 * La France ne peut être la France sans la grandeur.

1960s

 * No policy is worth anything outside of reality.
 * Il n'y a pas de politique qui vaille en dehors des réalités.
 * Televised speech, June 14 1960

 * How can you govern a country that has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?
 * Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six variétés de fromage?
 * Les Mots du Général, Ernest Mignon, 1962

 * So, it is true that one’s homeland is entirely human, emotional and that it is the root of action, of authority, of responsibility from which one can build Europe. What elements? Well, [nation] States, because only States are valid, are legitimate, in this respect, in addition they are capable of… As I have already said and I repeat, that at the present time, there cannot be any other Europe than that of the States, apart of course from myths, fictions, parades. From this solidarity depends all hope of uniting Europe in the political field and in the field of defense, as in the economic field. From this solidarity depends, therefore, the destiny of Europe as a whole, from the Atlantic to the Urals.
 * Alors, il est vrai que la Patrie est un élément humain, sentimental et que c’est sur des éléments d’action, d’autorité, de responsabilité qu’on peut construire l’Europe. Quels éléments? Eh bien, les États, car il n’y a que les États qui, à cet égard, soient valables, soient légitimes et en outre soient capables de réaliser… J’ai déjà dit et je répète, qu’à l’heure qu’il est, il ne peut pas y avoir d’autre Europe possible que celle des États, en dehors naturellement des mythes, des fictions, des parades. De cette solidarité dépend tout espoir d’unir l’Europe dans le domaine politique et dans le domaine de la défense, comme dans le domaine économique. De cette solidarité dépend, par conséquent, le destin de l’Europe tout entière, depuis l’Atlantique jusqu’à l’Oural.
 * Press conference, Elysée Palace, Paris, 15 May 1962

 * England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her exchanges, her markets, her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities, and only slight agricultural ones. She has in all her doings very marked and very original habits and traditions. In short, the nature, the structure, the very situation that are England's differ profoundly from those of the continentals.
 * Press conference in Paris explaining his rejection of Britain's application to join the European Economic Community (14 January 1963), quoted in The Times (15 January 1963), p. 6

 * What England has done across the centuries and in the world is recognised as immense. Although there have often been conflicts with France, Britain's glorious participation in the victory which crowned the First World War—we French, we shall always admire it. As for the role England played in the most dramatic and decisive moments of the Second World War, no one has the right to forget it. In truth, the destiny of the free world, and first of all ours and even that of the United States and Russia, depended in a large measure on the resolution, the solidity and the courage of the English people, as Churchill was able to harness them. Even at the present moment no one can contest British capacity and worth.
 * Press conference in Paris (14 January 1963), quoted in The Times (15 January 1963), p. 6

 * Macmillan had crossed the Atlantic to throw himself into the arms of Kennedy to whom he sold his birthright in exchange for a dish of Polaris... Let us always recall this obvious truth. The Common Market cannot remain the Common Market and at the same time absorb Great Britain and her clients. The British would only enter in order to break up the machine.
 * Comments recorded in Jean Raymond Tournoux, La Tragedie du General, quoted in The Times (27 November 1967), p. 9

 * I am not ill. But do not worry, one day, I will certainly die.
 * Je ne vais pas mal. Mais rassurez-vous, un jour, je ne manquerai pas de mourir.
 * Press conference, February 1965, denying rumours that he secretly had a terminal disease

 * Of course one can jump up and down yelling Europe ! Europe ! Europe ! But it amounts to nothing and it means nothing.
 * Bien entendu, on peut sauter sur sa chaise comme un cabri en disant l’Europe ! l’Europe ! l’Europe ! mais cela n’aboutit à rien et cela ne signifie rien.
 * Interview on a presidential campaign, December 1965 INA archive of the video (De Gaulle meant that he wanted to build a European Union on realities, i.e. the existing nation-states with their respective interests – not on slogans and abstractions)

 * Long live Montreal, Long live Quebec! Long live free Quebec!
 * Vive Montreal; Vive le Québec! Vive le Québec libre!
 * Said in 1967 on the balcony of Montréal City Hall,, with particular emphasis on the word 'libre'. The phrase, a slogan used by Quebecers who favoured Quebec sovereignty, and de Gaulle's use of it, was seen by them as lending his tacit support to the Quebec sovereignty movement. The speech sparked a diplomatic incident with Canada's government, and was condemned by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, who said "Canadians do not need to be liberated."

 * Some even feared that the Jews, hitherto widely dispersed and who had remained what they had always been, that is to say, an elite people, sure of itself and domineering, once they were together again in the lands of their former grandeur might transform into a burning, conquering ambition the heart-moving wishes voiced since nineteen centuries: next year in Jerusalem.
 * Certains même redoutaient que les Juifs, jusqu'alors dispersés, mais qui étaient restés ce qu'ils avaient été de tout temps, c'est à dire un peuple d'élite, sûr de lui-même et dominateur, n'en viennent, une fois rassemblés dans le site de leur ancienne grandeur, à changer en ambition ardente et conquérante les souhaits très émouvants qu'ils formaient depuis 19 siècles : l'an prochain à Jérusalem.
 * Press Conference, 27 November 1967 INA archive of the video

 * The future does not belong to men and I do not predict it.
 * L'avenir n'appartient pas aux hommes et je ne le prédis pas.
 * Speech, December 1967

 * Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.
 * Attributed to de Gaulle by Romain Gary, Life, May 9, 1969

Undated

 * Men may have friends, statesmen cannot.
 * Les hommes peuvent avoir des amis, pas les hommes d'Etat.
 * Quoted in Les trois views de Charles de Gaulle by David Schoenbrun (1965)

 * When we were children, we often played war. We had a fine collection of lead soldiers. My brothers would take different countries: Xavier had Italy; Pierre, Germany. Or they would swap around. Well, I, gentlemen, always had France.
 * Reminiscing during an ocean voyage to Tahiti, quoted in The Atlantic, November 1960.

 * "Do you know that you have caused us more trouble than all the rest of our European allies?" "I do not doubt it. France is a great power."
 * Conversation with Anthony Eden, recounted in de Gaulle's Mémoires de guerre. Quoted in The Atlantic, November 1960.

 * Within ten years, we shall have the means to kill 80 million Russians. I truly believe that one does not light-heartedly attack people who are able to kill 80 million Russians, even if one can kill 800 million French, that is if there were 800 million French.
 * Discussing the Force de Frappe. Quoted in The New York Review of Books, 29 April 2010.

Attributed

 * A state worthy of the name has no friends.
 * Un état digne de ce nom n'a pas d'amis.
 * Reported in 1965 by french weekly news magazine L'Express. De Gaulle allegedly made this remark in a cabinet meeting to Minister of Foreign Affairs Maurice Couve de Murville. There is, however, no hard proof of this story.
 * Variants of this quote include France has no friends, only interests or States have no friends, only interests. But there is no evidence of de Gaulle actually saying these.
 * It is reminiscent of de Gaulles Quote Men may have friends, statesmen cannot (see above). It is also reminiscent of a quote by british Prime Minister Henry Temple, also known as Lord Palmerston, who said in 1848: We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow. Link

Misattributed

 * I am Joan of Arc. I am Clemenceau.
 * Reportedly misattributed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in January, 1943, in communicating his impression of de Gaulle's arrogance in assuming the mantle of leadership of free France. Reported in Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (1990), p. 33-34.

 * The evolution toward Communism is inevitable.
 * Reported in the National Review (November 1962) as a misattribution created by extreme rightists. See Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (1990), p. 33.

 * Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.
 * Actually said by Giorgos Seferis

Quotes about de Gaulle

 * Leahy also watched with dismay as General de Gaulle's militant supporters eclipsed the leaders Leahy believed had the real interests of France at heart. De Gaulle, who had now taken the Cross of Lorraine as his personal symbol, was too ruthless to fail.
 * Henry H. Adams, Witness to Power: The Life of Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (1985), p. 237

 * Leahy was by no means ready to accept the tall, vainglorious Frenchman as the natural leader of French interests. In common with most of his staff who had been with him in Vichy, he distrusted de Gaulle and his French Committee of National Liberation (FCNL). As early as the previous September, Leahy had expressed his views to friends in the State Department, and "Doc" Matthews had sent him a collection of letters and reports from Murphy and others naming chapter and verse of how de Gaulle and his followers had consistently undercut Giraud. Leahy had no particular brief for Giraud, but he was the one recognized by the British and Americans as French military leader in the Mediterranean. For the same reason de Gaulle had been kept in the dark before Torch- because his headquarters could not keep a secret- Giraud concealed from the FCNL his invasion of Corsica in September until just before the landings. De Gaulle's response was to use the FCNL, which he now dominated, to deprive "the French Commander-in-Chief of the authority and freedom of action which both he and our own military leaders have felt was essential. Such behavior, Leahy felt, was all of a piece with what was to be expected from Charles de Gaulle and his Free French. There was no living with de Gaulle, but because of decisions made by Churchill and FDR, Leahy had to try.
 * Henry H. Adams, Witness to Power: The Life of Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (1985), p. 238

 * De Gaulle has an excellent library, I took a look at it in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises. He is a very smart man, is a very far-looking man, and a very experienced man. So I have made the best possible experiences with Mr De Gaulle.
 * Mr De Gaulle is very much a realist, even very realistic.
 * Konrad Adenauer, in an interview with Günter Gaus, 1965

 * Did it have to come to this? The paradox is that when Europe was less united, it was in many ways more independent. The leaders who ruled in the early stages of integration had all been formed in a world before the global hegemony of the United States, when the major European states were themselves imperial powers, whose foreign policies were self-determined. These were people who had lived through the disasters of the Second World War, but were not crushed by them. This was true not just of a figure like De Gaulle, but of Adenauer and Mollet, of Eden and Heath, all of whom were quite prepared to ignore or defy America if their ambitions demanded it. Monnet, who did not accept their national assumptions, and never clashed with the US, still shared their sense of a future in which Europeans could settle their own affairs, in another fashion. Down into the 1970s, something of this spirit lived on even in Giscard and Schmidt, as Carter discovered. But with the neo-liberal turn of the 1980s, and the arrival in power in the 1990s of a postwar generation, it faded. The new economic doctrines cast doubt on the state as a political agent, and the new leaders had never known anything except the Pax Americana. The traditional springs of autonomy were gone.
 * Perry Anderson, "Depicting Europe", London Review of Books (20 September 2007)

 * Looks like a king in exile.
 * From one of de Gaulle's instructors at the École de Guerre in Paris, as quoted by The Atlantic, November 1960

 * At this historic moment I deem it a privilege and honor to extend to you greetings and congratulations upon your inauguration as the first President of the Fifth French Republic. France has a special place in the hearts of the American people. Moreover, you yourself have come to symbolize for us not only French valor and resolution in the face of adversity but also a dynamic and youthful France determined to go forward with renewed vigor and faith. For these reasons the American people join me in saluting the beginning of the Fifth Republic with great hope and confidence. We send to you and to the noble people you have the honor to lead a special message of friendship and of good wishes for your own future and that of the French nation.
 * Dwight D. Eisenhower; Message to President de Gaulle of France Upon His Inauguration Online, The American Presidency Project; 9 January 1959

 * When I came to England in the late 60s, Sergeant Pepper was ruling the land, de Gaulle was the Great Satan
 * "Fear and loathing" (2001)

 * We have both faced serious problems this year in bearing our respective responsibilities. But standing back from these immediate problems, I trust you share with me the faith that the clouds of war are slowly beginning to lift from Southeast Asia and that by giving our full support to the Jarring Mission we can prevent them from enveloping the Middle East again. In different ways, we each have borne governmental responsibilities for some thirty years. Recalling what our nations have been through in this time and the underlying prosperity and security they now enjoy, I would hope you, too, look with confidence on the future of our nations and the western family of which they are a part.
 * Lyndon B. Johnson; Exchange of Letters With President de Gaulle of France Online, The American Presidency Project; 3 January 1969

 * In this grave hour for France, I want you to know of my continuing friendship and support as well as that of the American people. Your personal achievements in bringing the resurgence of France as a great champion of freedom have won the esteem of all those who cherish liberty. The course you have chosen to settle the tragic problem of Algeria cannot but meet the approval of those who believe in the principles of democracy and who seek a durable understanding among nations of the world.
 * John F. Kennedy; Exchange of Messages With President de Gaulle of France Online, The American Presidency Project; 24 April 1961

 * During his stay in London King was presented to King George VI at Buckingham Palace. His Majesty, wearing the uniform of an admiral of the fleet, received King in a sitting room where he was at work on papers. Whiskey or tea was offered, and as King had given up spirits for the duration of the war, he gladly accepted the tea, which was ready. The King reminisced agreeably about his cruises in the Royal Navy, and asked the admiral about his own with such tact that the audience, in retrospect, resembled a chat between a couple of old sailors. None of this comfortable atmosphere prevailed when General de Gaulle called at Claridge's to pay his respects to King and Marshall. Stark, who throughout the war skillfully conducted many negotiations with the Free French, had arranged the meeting. De Gaulle, feeling himself to the the head of a state, seemingly considered that he should be called upon, but as it had been pointed out that he had two stars, while Marshall and King had four, he presented himself at Claridge's, although with rather ill grace. He appeared at the proper time with a single aide, but conducted himself very stiffly, and after delivering himself of a long speech in French, in which he asked for many things that we needed ourselves at that moment, took his departure. It was scarcely a call calculated to make friends!
 * Ernest King and Walter M. Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (1952), p. 405-406

 * In the course of the Casablanca Conference, General de Gaulle, who was in London, had been invited by the Prime Minister to come to North Africa. De Gaulle was offended that he had not been invited further in advance, and in one way and another proved to be his usual difficult self. Mr. Eden, the Foreign Secretary, had to exert great pressure to induce him to leave London for Casablanca. When he arrived there the firmest treatment by Mr. Churchill was required to persuade him to call upon Giraud. Finally in the interests of at least good public feeling a "shot-gun marriage" was arranged. At a press conference on 24 January, De Gaulle and Giraud were made to sit in a row of chairs, alternating with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill, and to be photographed shaking hands. As the newsreel cameras finished their work, each French general dropped the other's hand as though it were red hot.
 * Ernest J. King and Walter M. Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (1952), p. 425

 * Prior to the landings De Gaulle had made it clear that he wished to be definitely recognized as the ruler of France, and claimed that he alone had the right to give orders to the people of France. Once the landings had taken place these difficulties did not diminish, and the Joint Chiefs during their stay in England had a taste of these complications when De Gaulle undertook to change the regulations about the use of United States currency in France by American troops. The Joint Chiefs sent General Koenig, who, as the commander of the French forces of the interior, was serving as a direct subordinate of Eisenhower's in the Allied organization, and asked him what the difficulty was. It appeared that Koenig could not see De Gaulle's point either. As Eisenhower was troubled about the correct manner of managing civilian affairs in France until a proper organization could be set up, he asked the Joint Chiefs what to do, and they proposed that he at once send a message to the President, suggesting that if De Gaulle would not cooperate properly, another Frenchman be designated to manage French civilian affairs, and that De Gaulle be ignored, entirely. The Joint Chiefs did not stay to hear the answer from the President, but later that evening they received word that he had concurred.
 * Ernest J. King and Walter M. Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (1952), p. 551

 * Charles de Gaulle (born 1890) spent two and a half years during the First World War as a prisoner of war in Wilhelmine Germany; in the Second, he initially commanded a tank regiment. Then, after the collapse of France, he rebuilt the political structure of France twice – the first time in 1944 to restore France’s essence, and the second time in 1958 to revitalize its soul and prevent civil war. De Gaulle guided France’s historical transition from a defeated, divided and overstretched empire to a stable, prosperous nation-state under a sound constitution. From that basis, he restored France to a significant and sustainable role in international relations.
 * Henry Kissinger, Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy (2022)

 * His [that is, Roosevelt's] determination to go his own way, his insistence on informing himself through his own idiosyncratic avenues of communication, his deliberate short-circuiting of the proper channels of responsibility- all these had defects of their virtues that now and then led him and the country astray. His two great failures were France and China. These historic civilizations of depth and pungent flavor, to which he was instinctively and without reluctance attracted, defeated his best efforts to incorporate them in an all-embracing view of the postwar world. In each instance he was badly advised, and there is no great artfulness needed to see where the bad advice came from and why he listened to it. But evidence was also available to him that de Gaulle was a far more powerful personage than he had imagined and Chiang Kai-shek was a far weaker one: he chose not to act on it. He wanted a revived but malleable France that would be willing to give up its empire and a united but nationalist China that would be a "great nation," able to fill the vacuum left by Japanese defeat. He got neither.
 * Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and Their War (1987), p. 12-13

 * It is with deep regret that I have learned of your resignation as President of France. I have greatly valued the frank and comprehensive exchanges of views it has been my privilege to have with you, both as a private citizen and as Vice President and President of the United States. Nor shall I forget the courtesy of your welcome and the wisdom of your counsel during my recent visit to Paris. Our talks proved the occasion for a new departure in friendly cooperation between our two nations. We in the United States will not forget what you have done for France, both at home and abroad, and for the world, both in war and in peace. Mrs. Nixon joins me in sending you and Madame de Gaulle our warm personal regards and best wishes for the future.
 * Richard Nixon; Letter to General Charles de Gaulle on the Announcement of His Resignation as President of France Online, The American Presidency Project; 28 April 1969

 * When he was appointed to command the North African expedition, Eisenhower was briefed by Robert Murphy, our diplomatic representative there, on the "bewildering complexities" of the quarrels among not only the French factions but Spanish, Arab, Berber, German, and Russian as well. "Eisenhower listened with a kind of horrified fascination," wrote Murphy, "to my description of the possible complications... The General seemed to sense that this first campaign would present him with problems running the entire geopolitical gamut- it certainly did." What he could not have realized was that it would also place him in the crossfire between two towering political personalities, Franklin Roosevelt and Charles de Gaulle.
 * Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and Their War (1987), p. 421

 * De Gaulle's greatness consists in the fact that, by two or three gestures of command in foreign affairs, he was suddenly able to transform the confusion of civil life in post-war France into a concerted harmony, to command renewed respect towards the institutions of the state, and to establish stable government where there had previously been chaos.
 * Roger Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism: Third Edition (2001), p. 179

 * It was the crucible of 1940 that transformed the obscure colonel of the battle of France... He emerged from it with his qualities of courage and self-reliance, audacity and daring, but also with his defects of ingratitude, vindictiveness, duplicity and prejudice; all inherent in the metal, but turned into steel by the ordeals of that terrible summer. In 1940 he proclaimed himself Joan of Arc [a misattribution; see above]. It was not long after the Dakar fiasco that he told the British Foreign Secretary, "Je suis la France". ... He did not need to learn from Churchill a creed we sometimes seem to have forgotten but would do well to remember: boundless love of country and complete faith in its destiny... de Gaulle, absolutely alone, has rebuilt his shattered country on the ruins of defeat, and has made France stronger, and her influence greater, than it has been for a century.
 * Edward Spears, Two Men who saved France: Pétain and De Gaulle (1966), pp. 217-218

 * Present at Casablanca but excluded from every talk that mattered was Charles de Gaulle. No one seemed to know quite what to do with him. But before the conference was over, his differences with the Allies had been patched up somewhat, and his future role had been much clarified.
 * C.L. Sulzberger, in his book The American Heritage Picture History of World War II (1966), p. 317

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