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In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.

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
Free
Affairs
Doe
Libertarian
States
Affair
Men
Among
Liberty
Administers
Justice
Administer
State
Libertarianism
Society
Conduct

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The disesteem into which moralists have fallen is due at bottom to their failure to see that in an age like this one the function of the moralist is not to exhort men to be good but to elucidate what the good is. The problem of sanctions is secondary.
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It is not the idea as such which the censor attacks, whether it be heresy or radicalism or obscenity. He attacks the circulation of the idea among the classes which in his judgment are not to be trusted with the idea.
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Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible.
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Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience.
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Newspapers necessarilyand inevitably reflect, and therefore, in greater or lesser measure, intensify, the defective organization of public opinion.
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We are quite rich enough to defend ourselves, whatever the cost. We must now learn that we are quite rich enough to educate ourselves as we need to be educated.
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We must protect the right of our opponents to speak because we must hear what they have to say.
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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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The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.
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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 devil is merely a fallen angel, and when God lost Satan he lost one of his best lieutenants.
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Even God has been defended with nonsense.
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A really good diplomat does not go in for victories, even when he wins them.
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We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilisations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern.
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There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.
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There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.
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It is easier to develop great power than it is to know how to use it wisely.
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What a myth never contains is the critical power to separate its truth from its errors.
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Inevitably our opinions cover a bigger space, a longer reach of time, a greater number of things, than we can directly observe. They have, therefore, to be pieced together out of what others have reported and what we can imagine.
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The present crisis of Western democracy is a crisis in journalism.
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