Quote

We forge gradually our greatest instrument for understanding the world - introspection. We discover that humanity may resemble us very considerably - that the best way of knowing the inwardness of our neighbors is to know ourselves.

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
Humanity
Resemble
Knowing
Neighbors
Understanding
Gradually
Knowledge
Instrument
May
Neighbor
Inwardness
Best
Discover
Considerably
Way
Instruments
Forge
World
Greatest
Introspection

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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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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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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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A useful definition of liberty is obtained only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main business of human life, that is to say, in the process by which men educate their responses and learn to control their environment.
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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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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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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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There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral.
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In places where men are used to differences they inevitably become tolerant.
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The Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively.
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The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.
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A more conscious life is one in which a man is conscious not only of what he sees, but of the prejudices with which he sees it.
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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 are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human.
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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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But what is propaganda, if not the effort to alter the picture to which men respond, to substitute one social pattern for another?
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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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The thinker dies, but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal but ideas are immortal.
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There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.
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Only the very rarest of princes can endure even a little criticism, and few of them can put up with even a pause in the adulation.
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