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Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power.

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
Men
Ignore
Desires
Source
Desire
Power

More quotes by Walter Lippmann

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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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The mass of the reading public is not interested in learning and assimilating the results of accurate investigation.
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A large plural society cannot be governed without recognizing that, transcending its plural interests, there is a rational order with a superior common law.
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Even God has been defended with nonsense.
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Only the consciousness of a purpose that is mightier than any man and worthy of all men can fortify and inspirit and compose the souls of men.
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The only feeling that anyone can have about an event he does not experience is the feeling aroused by his mental image of that event ... For it is clear enough that under certain conditions men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities.
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The self-evident truth which makes men invincible is that inalienably they are inviolable persons.
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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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Modern men are afraid of the past. It is a record of human achievement, but its other face is human defeat.
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The common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialised class.
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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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Here lay the political genius of Franklin Roosevelt: that in his own time he knew what were the questions that had to be answered, even though he himself did not always find the full answer.
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The time has come to stop beating our heads against stone walls under the illusion that we have been appointed policeman to the human race.
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Men command fewer words than they have ideas to express, and language, as Jean Paul said, is a dictionary of faded metaphors.
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The man who raises new issues has always been distasteful to politicians. He musses up what had been so tidily arranged.
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Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism.
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It is impossible to abolish either with a law or an axe the desires of men.
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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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Creative ideas come to the intuitive person who can face up to the insecurity of looking beyond the obvious.
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The American's conviction that he must be able to look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell is the very essence of the free man's way of life.
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