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The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.

Walter Lippmann

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Walter Lippmann
Age: 85 †
Born: 1889
Born: September 23
Died: 1974
Died: December 14
Journalist
Politician
Writer
New York City
New York
Business
Deal
Sense
Behind
Without
Deals
Good
Leave
Grace
Successfully
Leader
Leadership
Situation
Genius
Common
Behinds

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The host of men who stand between a great thinker and the average man are not automatic transmitters. They work on the ideas perhaps that is why a genius usually hates his disciples.
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Where two factions see vividly each its own aspect, and contrive their own explanations of what they see, it is almost impossible for them to credit each other with honesty.
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Only the consciousness of a purpose that is mightier than any man and worthy of all men can fortify and inspirit and compose the souls of men.
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You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers.
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Only the very rarest of princes can endure even a little criticism, and few of them can put up with even a pause in the adulation.
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In making the great experiment of governing people by consent rather than by coercion, it is not sufficient that the party in power should have a majority. It is just as necessary that the party in power should never outrage the minority.
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It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.
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The news is not a mirror of social conditions, but the report of an aspect that has obtruded itself.
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Love endures when the lovers love many things together And not merely each other.
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Men command fewer words than they have ideas to express, and language, as Jean Paul said, is a dictionary of faded metaphors.
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Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character.
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Whenever we accept an idea as authority instead of as instrument, an idol is set up. We worship the plough, and not the fruit.
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We are concerned in public affairs, but immersed in our private ones.
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No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.
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Robinson Crusoe, the self-sufficient man, could not have lived in New York city.
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The man who raises new issues has always been distasteful to politicians. He musses up what had been so tidily arranged.
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Freedom to speak... can be maintained only by promoting debate.
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The size of a man's income has considerable effect on his access to the world beyond his neighborhood. With money he can overcome almost every tangible obstacle of communication, he can travel, buy books and periodicals, and bring within the range of his attention almost any known fact of the world.
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