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A man who has humility will have acquired in the last reaches of his beliefs the saving doubt of his own certainty.

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
Humility
Pride
Doubt
Belief
Reaches
Lasts
Acquired
Last
Beliefs
Men
Certainty
Saving

More quotes by Walter Lippmann

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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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Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends.
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The true speech of man is idiomatic, if not of the earth and sky, then at least of the saloon and the bleachers.
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The present crisis of Western democracy is a crisis in journalism.
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All achievement should be measured in human happiness.
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The consent of the governed is more than a safeguard against ignorant tyrants: it is an insurance against benevolent despots as well.
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If all power is in the people, if there is no higher law than their will, and if by counting their votes, their will may be ascertained - then the people may entrust all their power to anyone, and the power of the pretender and the usurper is then legitimate. It is not to be challenged since it came originally from the sovereign people.
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The press does not tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about.
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We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilisations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern.
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The prophecy of a world moving toward political unity is the light which guides all that is best, most vigorous, most truly alive in the work of our time.
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This is one of the paradoxes of the democratic movement - that it loves a crowd and fears the individuals who compose it - that the religion of humanity should have no faith in human beings.
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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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Successful ... politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies.
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Whatever truth you contribute to the world will be one lucky shot in a thousand misses. You cannot be right by holding your breath and taking precautions.
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It is impossible to abolish either with a law or an axe the desires of men.
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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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There is no arguing with the pretenders to a divine knowledge and to a divine mission. They are possessed with the sin of pride, they have yielded to the perennial temptation.
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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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The first principle of a civilized state is that power is legitimate only when it is under contract.
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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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