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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1900–65)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 678
AUTHOR: Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1900–65)
QUOTATION: I yield to no man—if I may borrow that majestic parliamentary phrase—I yield to no man in my belief in the principle of free debate, inside or outside the halls of Congress. 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.
ATTRIBUTION: ADLAI E. STEVENSON, speech to the state committee of the Liberal party, New York City, August 28, 1952.—The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson, vol. 4, p. 63 (1974).
SUBJECTS: Freedom of speech