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

More quotes by Walter Lippmann

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When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.
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The host of men who stand between a great thinker and the average man are not automatic transmitters. They work on the ideas perhaps that is why a genius usually hates his disciples.
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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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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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Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible.
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The facts we see depend on where we are placed and the habits of our eyes.
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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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The present crisis of Western democracy is a crisis in journalism.
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Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created.
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Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.
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There is nothing disastrous in the temporary nature of our ideas. They are always that. But there may very easily be a train of evil in the self-deception which regards them as final. I think God will forgive us our skepticism sooner than our Inquisitions.
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The best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper unpleasant truths in the master's ear. It is the court fool, not the foolish courtier, whom the king can least afford to lose.
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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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In making the great experiment of governing people by consent rather than by coercion, it is not sufficient that the party in power should have a majority. It is just as necessary that the party in power should never outrage the minority.
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Art enlarges experience by admitting us to the inner life of others.
Walter Lippmann
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The mass of the reading public is not interested in learning and assimilating the results of accurate investigation.
Walter Lippmann
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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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It is so much easier to talk of poverty than to think of the poor.
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The press does not tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about.
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Ages when custom is unsettled are necessarily ages of prophecy. The moralist cannot teach what is revealed he must reveal what can be taught. He has to seek insight rather than to preach.
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