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The best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper unpleasant truths in the master's ear. It is the court fool, not the foolish courtier, whom the king can least afford to lose.

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
Least
Master
Unpleasant
Best
Ears
Whisper
Must
Kings
Servants
Like
Court
Truths
People
Masters
Afford
Valets
Fool
Servant
Courtier
Lose
Foolish
Courtiers
Loses
King
Valet

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When men are brought face to face with their opponents, forced to listen and learn and mend their ideas, they cease to be children and savages and begin to live like civilized men. Then only is freedom a reality, when men may voice their opinions because they must examine their opinions.
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Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.
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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.
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It is so much easier to talk of poverty than to think of the poor.
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The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth.
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The people who really matter in social affairs are neither those who wish to stop short like a mule, or leap from crag to crag like a mountain goat.
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Leaders are the custodians of a nation's ideals, of the beliefs it cherishes, of its permanent hopes, of the faith which makes a nation out of a mere aggregation of individuals.
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What a myth never contains is the critical power to separate its truth from its errors.
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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 remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy's side of the front is always propaganda and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace.
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A more conscious life is one in which a man is conscious not only of what he sees, but of the prejudices with which he sees it.
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Once you touch the biographies of human beings, the notion that political beliefs are logically determined collapses like a pricked balloon.
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Liberty may be an uncomfortable blessing unless you know what to do with it. That is why so many freed slaves returned to their masters, why so many emancipated women are only too glad to give up the racket and settle down. For between announcing that you will live your own life, and the living of it lie the real difficulties of any awakening.
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