Adlai Stevenson II Quotes

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.

The district that is best represented is the district that is wise enough to select a man of energy, intelligence, and integrity and reelects him year after year.

What is key for winning the election is to be able to put forth a vision for our future and how this election affects people's lives.

The golden rule has no place in a political campaign.

If Rob Ford decided he wanted to run for the Liberal Party in 2015, we'd say, 'No, sorry, the way you approach things, the way you govern, the way you behave is not suitable to the kind of Liberal team we want to build.'

As I climbed the electoral ladder - from state assemblyman to mayor of Woodbridge and finally to governor of New Jersey - political compromises came easy to me because I'd learned how to keep a part of myself innocent of them.

I've never, in my whole 30 years in office, run a negative ad.

The fastest way for a politician to become an elder statesman is to lose an election.

The House [of Representatives] is composed of sober, solid, old-charter folks.... There are few shining geniuses; there are many who have experience, the virtues of the heart, and the habits of business. It will be quite a republican assembly.

He's a terrible politician, but he makes a fine senator and public servant.

Truth telling in politics is the mark of an inexperienced politician.

I am afraid that Franklin D. Roosevelt has not thoroughly matured.

When Barack Obama was asked about his lack of executive experience in 2008, he pointed to his successful campaign as proof he could manage the presidency.

Tony Blair was a good politician but not a good Prime Minister, and that's what we don't want to be. We don't want to be just people who are good at winning elections: we want to be good at governing. I think we benefit from having seen the mistakes that we think Tony Blair made in 1997.

Politics is the one field you don't age out of.

I am contesting elections since 1952, but never did I throw mud.

For years, as a seller of real estate and star of reality TV, Donald Trump made a living wooing customers and viewers. His selling skills were good enough that he even convinced voters to elect him as president in spite of his near-total lack of qualifications.

During the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton ran a blunt television ad asking whether Barack Obama could handle a foreign policy crisis.

When choosing the president of the United States and the leader of the free world, your desire to have a beer with a candidate should be your last concern. Let's keep our president in the Oval Office and out of the bars.

I myself have raised plenty of questions about Sarah Palin, much to the annoyance of the McCain campaign. But those questions have been about her qualifications and experience, never her appearance.

It is in the interest of Americans to find out what those wanting to be president think about a wide range of challenges and what they might do about them. We should want to get their take on the wisdom of past decisions, what they agree and disagree with, and why.

What we need and have not got at Westminster are real experience and wisdom, possessed by people who do not view politics as a career.

In 2015, Arvind Kejriwal was not tested. But in 2020, he has been tested and he has failed.

If the first year of the Trump administration has made anything clear, it's that experience, knowledge, education and political wisdom matter tremendously. Governing is something else entirely from campaigning. And perhaps, most important, celebrities do not make excellent heads of state.

I probably carry more scar tissue on my derrière than any other candidate-that's political scar tissue.