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When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute.

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
Suffering
Complexes
Dogmatic
Simple
Complex
Distortion
Often
Absolutes
Considerable
Truth
Radical
Unfamiliar
Great
Absolute
Suffers
Made
Honesty
Masses
Things
Mass
Distant
Hypothetical
People
Media
Relative
Communicated

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Industry is a better horse to ride than genius.
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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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In a place where everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks very much.
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A regime, an established order, is rarely overthrown by a revolutionary movement usually a regime collapses of its own weakness and corruption and then a revolutionary movement enters among the ruins and takes over the powers that have become vacant.
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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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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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In the blood of the martyrs to intolerance are the seeds of unbelief
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The public interest may be presumed to be what men would choose if they saw clearly, thought rationally, acted disinterestedly and benevolently.
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The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
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Men fall into a routine when they are tired and slack: it has all the appearance of activity with few of its burdens.
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A better distribution of incomes would increase that efficiency by diverting a great fund of wealth from the useless to the useful members of society. To cut off the income of the useless will not impair their efficiency. They have none to impair. It will, in fact, compel them to acquire a useful function.
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For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.
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Whether or not birth control is eugenic, hygienic, and economic, it is the most revolutionary practice in the history of sexual morals.
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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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Democracy is much too important to be left to public opinion.
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True opinions can prevail only if the facts to which they refer are known if they are not known, false ideas are just as effective as true ones, if not a little more effective.
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It is in time of peace that the value of life is fixed. The test of war reveals it.
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Usually it is the stereotyped shape assumed by an event at an obvious place that uncovers the run of the news.
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Robinson Crusoe, the self-sufficient man, could not have lived in New York city.
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In places where men are used to differences they inevitably become tolerant.
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