Quote #1
I am always amazed by the resistance offered to progress, even the most innocous progress. Imagine, if you will, jumping from one rickety bridge to another, with blind men running back and forth trying to push you off, and you will have some idea what legislating progress is like. The good news is that if you're pushed off, you can always climb back up and try again.
- from his book What I Think
Quote #2
I suppose I could wear a hat, but then my teeth would fall out to spite me. I could get false ones, but doubtless then I would get fat just to prove my teeth work. The easiest course is to drape my whole body in robes and shawls and hope no one recognizes my eyes.
- Commenting about his baldness to an NBC reporter in 1952.
Quote #3
President Eisenhower continues to amaze me. He appears to be an ungainly and graceless man, but when [senator Robert] Taft makes a move, no matter how ridiculous, Eisenhower copies it with the skill of [French mime] Marcel Merceau. I haven't achieved such levels of mimicry with my own party, but I'm working on it.
- 1952 interview
Quote #4
The legislature is a frightening thing. To this day the state capitol building seems to me a beast ready to swallow me up; the very walls and ceilings seem to crush you as you walk through it.
- from his book Friends and Enemies
Quote #5
Today we are plunged into a battle that is familiar to us. The enemies and the problems are the same. But the terrain is different. The world around us has changed and shifted so much we no longer recognize it.
- Giving a speech at Charlottesville, 1960
Experience Egg
Stevenson's ex-wife once wrote a book about him called The Egghead and I. In 1952, one of his campaign slogans was "Stevenson - The Experienced Candidate."