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A rational man acting in the real world may be defined as one who decides where he will strike a balance between what he desires and what can be done.

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
Desire
Prudence
May
Strike
Done
Desires
Real
Strikes
Men
Rational
World
Defined
Balance
Acting
Decides

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In places where men are used to differences they inevitably become tolerant.
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It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.
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There is but one bond of peace that is both permanent and enriching: The increasing knowledge of the world in which experiment occurs.
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A long life in journalism convinced me many presidents ago that there should be a large air space between a journalist and the head of a state.
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A man cannot be a good doctor and keep telephoning his broker between patients nor a good lawyer with his eye on the ticker.
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Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power.
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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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True opinions can prevail only if the facts to which they refer are known if they are not known, false ideas are just as effective as true ones, if not a little more effective.
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The unions are the first feeble effort to conquer the industrial jungle for democratic life. They may not succeed, but if they don't their failure will be a tragedy for civilization, a loss of cooperative effort, a baulking of energy, and the fixing in American life of a class-structure.
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The press does not tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about.
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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.
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In the end, advertising rests upon the fact that consumers are a fickle and superstitious mob, incapable of any real judgment as to what it wants or how it is to get what it thinks it likes.
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The facts we see depend on where we are placed and the habits of our eyes.
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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 final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
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We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception.
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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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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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