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And the principle which distinguishes democracy from all other forms of government is that in a democracy the opposition not only is tolerated as constitutional but must be maintained because it is in fact indispensable.

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
Opposition
Principle
Forms
Democracy
Tolerated
Liberty
Distinguishes
Fact
Maintained
Government
Constitutional
Must
Indispensable

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One might point to the great illumination that has resulted from Freud's analysis of the abracadabra of our dreams. No one can any longer dismiss the fantasy because it is logically inconsistent, superficially absurd, or objectively untrue.
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Life can be swamped by sex very easily if sex is not normally satisfied.
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The search for moral guidance which shall not depend upon external authority has invariably ended in the acknowledgment of some new authority.
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Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality.
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When men are brought face to face with their opponents, forced to listen and learn and mend their ideas, they cease to be children and savages and begin to live like civilized men. Then only is freedom a reality, when men may voice their opinions because they must examine their opinions.
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The effort to calculate exactly what the voters want at each particular moment leaves out of account the fact that when they are troubled the thing the voters most want is to be told what to want.
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To create a minimum standard of life below which no human being can fall is the most elementary duty of the democratic state.
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Nothing is easier than to simplify life and them make a philosophy about it. The trouble is that the resulting philosophy is true only of that simplified life.
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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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Love endures when the lovers love many things together And not merely each other.
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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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You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers.
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Yet this corporate being, though so insubstantial to our senses, binds, in Burkes words, a man to his country with ties which though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. That is why young men die in battle for their countrys sake and why old men plant trees they will never sit under.
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A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. ... A great society is simply a big and complicated urban society.
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The central drama of our age is how the Western nations and the Asian peoples are to find a tolerable basis of co-existence.
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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.
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In places where men are used to differences they inevitably become tolerant.
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It is better to catch the idol-maker than to smash each idol.
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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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Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.
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