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Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible.

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
Imaginative
Desirable
Ideals
Possible
Understanding

More quotes by Walter Lippmann

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There is but one bond of peace that is both permanent and enriching: The increasing knowledge of the world in which experiment occurs.
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A man cannot sleep in his cradle: whatever is useful must in the nature of life become useless.
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The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opposition than from his fervent supporters.
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Where love exists with self-respect and joy, where a fine environment is provided for the child, where the parents live under conditions that neither stunt the imagination nor let it run to uncontrolled fantasy, there you have the family that modern men are seeking to create.
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A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern. For there is no adequate way in which it can keep itself informed about what the people of the country are thinking and doing and wanting.
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Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power.
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At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history. To human nature (of the sort conceived), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply.
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Art enlarges experience by admitting us to the inner life of others.
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The first principle of a civilized state is that power is legitimate only when it is under contract.
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The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.
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The news and the truth are not the same thing.
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The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them in relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.
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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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Behind innocence there gathers a clotted mass of superstition, of twisted and misdirected impulse clandestine flirtation, fads, and ragtime fill the unventilated mind.
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Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort it brings.
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Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event.
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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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The facts we see depend on where we are placed and the habits of our eyes.
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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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We are all captives of the picture in our head - our belief that the world we have experienced is the world that really exists.
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