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When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.

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
Philosophers
Politicians
Philosopher
Cease
Generally
Politician
Trying

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No mariner ever enters upon a more uncharted sea than does the average human being born in the 20th century. Our ancestors know their way from birth through eternity we are puzzled about the day after tomorrow.
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A better distribution of incomes would increase that efficiency by diverting a great fund of wealth from the useless to the useful members of society. To cut off the income of the useless will not impair their efficiency. They have none to impair. It will, in fact, compel them to acquire a useful function.
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It seems like topsy-turvyland to make reason serve the irrational. Yet that is just what it has always done, and ought always to do.
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Whereas each man claims his freedom as a matter of right, the freedom he accords to other men is a matter of toleration.
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What each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but on pictures made by himself or given to him...
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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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The first principle of a civilized state is that power is legitimate only when it is under contract.
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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.
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Where love exists with self-respect and joy, where a fine environment is provided for the child, where the parents live under conditions that neither stunt the imagination nor let it run to uncontrolled fantasy, there you have the family that modern men are seeking to create.
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Newspapers necessarilyand inevitably reflect, and therefore, in greater or lesser measure, intensify, the defective organization of public opinion.
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Every man whose business it is to think knows that he must for part of the day create about himself a pool of silence.
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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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It is easier to develop great power than it is to know how to use it wisely.
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We must protect the right of our opponents to speak because we must hear what they have to say.
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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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Popular government has not yet been proved to guarantee, always and everywhere, good government.
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It is at the cross-roads that skepticism is born, not in a hermitage.
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When everyone thinks the same, nobody is thinking.
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We are concerned in public affairs, but immersed in our private ones.
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Genius sees the dynamic purpose first, find reasons afterward.
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