Adlai Stevenson I Quotes

The country is as strong abroad only as it's strong at home.

Nations around the world look to us for the leadership not merely by strength of arms but by strength of our convictions.

As a world leader, America must be prepared to confront any challenge.

The goal of this Nation, I so strongly believe, is to be a preeminent world power. We have to understand what comes with that: The responsibility to be strong.

This country was the moral leader of the world until George Bush became president.

The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I'm not at all sure that that's what the Obama administration believes.

We have to defend America and be strong.

The nation's mere possession of military power ready for exertion provides visible support for the nation's expression of views on foreign affairs, and that often is enough to make the expression persuasive. Thus a foreign policy which has a respectable basis in justice and morality is strengthened if it has also a respectable basis in physical force.

An army abroad is of little use unless there are prudent counsels at home. Parvi enim sunt foris arma, nisi est consilium domi.

What some people argue is that Vietnam stands for the proposition that there's no role for American power anywhere on earth. I don't believe that's the case at all. I think we're the strongest force for democracy and for stability on earth, and we must have a strong capacity to perform that role.

It may be a truism that the country cannot be strong abroad unless it is strong at home, but it's also a fact that the country's economic prosperity depends on its security abroad - not only in the core of the liberal democratic world but often well beyond it, too.

If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us; if we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us. And our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that's why we've got to be humble, and yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom.

I've been saying for the last nine years, our power comes as much from - our respect in the world comes as much from the exercise of our power as it does from the power of our principles.

I wish to reiterate all the reasons which [my predecessor] has presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our peace with other nations and the best means of securing respect for the assertion of our rights of the defense of our interests, and the exercise of our influence in international matters.

There is a homely old adage which runs: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.

Talleyrand once said to the first Napoleon that the United States is a giant without bones. Since that time our gristle has been rapidly hardening.

Our current administration is a patchwork - some from the French, some from the Swiss, the Turks, the Ottomans; then the Russians came; now we have a global presence. We need to create a system that is organic and can function for the whole state. Currently, foreign policy here is domestic policy.

Occasional war is one of the rigorous instruments in the hands of Providence to give tone to the character of nations.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's strategy is to lead from behind. It sounds like what he is outlining is not to lead at all. We cannot continue to outsource foreign policy. We must lead. We are the most powerful nation in the world. We need to begin to act like it, again.

I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy.

I originated a remark many years ago that I think has been copied more than any little thing that I've ever said, and I used it in the follies of 1922. I said America has a unique record. We never lost a war and we never won a conference in our lives. I believe that we could without any degree of egotism, single-handed lick any nation in the world. But we can't confer with Costa Rica and come home with our shirts on.

With a weak and rotting core, you don't have much of a foreign policy. You're discounted at the negotiating table, economically and militarily. So when people ask what's the best course of action for the U.S.-China relationship, I can give you ten academic responses. But the reality is we need to rebuild our core.

Our enemies will respond only to American strength.

If you want Russia to be a real fully developed partner, then America should invest in Russia and activate Russia as a strong nation.

It was leadership here at home that gave us strong American influence abroad, and the collapse of imperial Communism. Great nations have responsibilities to lead, and we should always be cautious of those who would lower our profile, because they might just wind up lowering our flag.