Quote

The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it the representative of a whole class.

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
Pick
Supports
Picks
Prejudices
Support
Casual
Class
Representatives
Upon
Tendency
Defies
Whole
Tendencies
Stumble
Mind
Prejudice
Sample
Make
Diversity
Representative

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Our life is managed from behind the scenes: we are actors in dramas that we cannot interpret. Of almost no decisive event can we say: this was our own choosing. We happen upon careers, necessity pushing, blind inclination pulling. If we stop to think we are amazed that we should be what we are.
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When men can no longer be theists, they must, if they are civilized, become humanists.
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Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.
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A rational man acting in the real world may be defined as one who decides where he will strike a balance between what he desires and what can be done.
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It is all very well to talk about being the captain of your soul. It is hard, and only a few heroes, saints, and geniuses have been the captains of their souls for any extended period of their lives.
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Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress. Ignore them and statesmanship is irrelevant fail to use them and it is weak.
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All men desire their own perfect adjustment, but they desire it, being finite men, on their own terms.
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The function of news is to signalize an event, the functionoftruth istobring to lightthehiddenfacts, toset them into relationwith each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.Only at those points, where social conditions take recognizable and measurable shape, do the body of truth and the body of news coincide.
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Art enlarges experience by admitting us to the inner life of others.
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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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Brains, you know, are suspect in the Republican Party.
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A really good diplomat does not go in for victories, even when he wins them.
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In the end, advertising rests upon the fact that consumers are a fickle and superstitious mob, incapable of any real judgment as to what it wants or how it is to get what it thinks it likes.
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We say that the truth will make us free. Yes, but that truth is a thousand truths which grow and change.
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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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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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We are concerned in public affairs, but immersed in our private ones.
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He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.
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When everyone thinks the same, nobody is thinking.
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