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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
Done
Desires
Real
Strikes
Men
Rational
World
Defined
Balance
Acting
Decides
Desire
Prudence
May
Strike
More quotes by Walter Lippmann
I generalized rashly: That is what kills political writing, this absurd pretence that you are delivering a great utterance. You never do. You are just a puzzled man making notes about what you think. You are not building the Pantheon, then why act like a graven image? You are drawing sketches in the sand which the sea will wash away.
Walter Lippmann
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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There comes a time when even the reformer is compelled to face the fairly widespread suspicion of the average man that politics is an exhibition in which there is much ado about nothing.
Walter Lippmann
Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality.
Walter Lippmann
Lovers who have nothing to do but love each other are not really to be envied love and nothing else very soon is nothing else.
Walter Lippmann
The true speech of man is idiomatic, if not of the earth and sky, then at least of the saloon and the bleachers.
Walter Lippmann
The writers who have nothing to say, are the ones you can buy, the others have too high a price.
Walter Lippmann
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.
Walter Lippmann
The smashing of idols is in itself such a preoccupation that it is almost impossible for the iconoclast to look clearly into a future when there will not be many idols left to smash.
Walter Lippmann
Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern.
Walter Lippmann
I demand from you in the name of your principles the rights which I shall deny to you later in the name of my principles.
Walter Lippmann
All men desire their own perfect adjustment, but they desire it, being finite men, on their own terms.
Walter Lippmann
Usually it is the stereotyped shape assumed by an event at an obvious place that uncovers the run of the news.
Walter Lippmann
We know that it is possible to harness desire to many interests, that evil is one form of a desire, and not the nature of it.
Walter Lippmann
The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.
Walter Lippmann
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.
Walter Lippmann
He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.
Walter Lippmann
When everyone thinks alike, no one thinks very much.
Walter Lippmann
In the blood of the martyrs to intolerance are the seeds of unbelief
Walter Lippmann
In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers, always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents.
Walter Lippmann
