“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.”

— Adlai Stevenson

Speech in New York City (28 August 1952)

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mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the… 1900–1965

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“Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Speech in New York City (28 August 1952)
Context: 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.

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Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety (2000), p. 233

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Deming Headlight (New Mexico), 6 January 1950, as cited in the Yale Book of Modern Proverbs and at There Are Opinions, And Then There Are Facts; Freakonomics blog post by Fred R. Shapiro http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/08/18/there-are-opinions-and-then-there-are-facts/ (18 August 2011)

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