Adlai Stevenson

Here at last is Nature's final decree of equity.

Here the invalid needs no physician, and the laborer rests from unrequited toil.

There Dives relinquished his riches and Lazarus his rags; the creditor loses his usury, and the debtor is acquitted of his obligation; the proud man surrenders his dignity, the politician his honors, the worldling his pleasures.

At that fatal threshold the philosopher ceases to be wise, and the song of the poet is silent.

There is neither rank, nor station, nor prerogative, in the republic of the grave.

His feet were upon the earth but the stars shining in perennial beauty were ever above him to inspire contemplation.

We cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence.

If we say, 'the darkness shall cover us,' in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.

If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our misery.

There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded.

The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant.

It is false to itself; or rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself.