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What we call a democratic society might be defined for certain purposes as one in which the majority is always prepared to put down a revolutionary minority.
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
Always
Majority
Hymns
Revolution
Minority
Politics
Purposes
Call
Minorities
Society
Revolutionary
Purpose
Defined
Certain
Democratic
Might
Prepared
More quotes by Walter Lippmann
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.
Walter Lippmann
When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.
Walter Lippmann
The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.
Walter Lippmann
Certainly he is not of the generation that regards honesty as the best policy. However, he does regard it as a policy.
Walter Lippmann
Where two factions see vividly each its own aspect, and contrive their own explanations of what they see, it is almost impossible for them to credit each other with honesty.
Walter Lippmann
It is impossible to abolish either with a law or an axe the desires of men.
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
No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.
Walter Lippmann
The central drama of our age is how the Western nations and the Asian peoples are to find a tolerable basis of co-existence.
Walter Lippmann
Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern.
Walter Lippmann
The man who raises new issues has always been distasteful to politicians. He musses up what had been so tidily arranged.
Walter Lippmann
Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power.
Walter Lippmann
It is all very well to talk about being the captain of your soul. It is hard, and only a few heroes, saints, and geniuses have been the captains of their souls for any extended period of their lives.
Walter Lippmann
Robinson Crusoe, the self-sufficient man, could not have lived in New York city.
Walter Lippmann
Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.
Walter Lippmann
Men who are orthodox when they are young are in danger of being middle-aged all their lives.
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
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.
Walter Lippmann
Football strategy does not originate in a scrimmage: it is useless to expect solutions in a political campaign.
Walter Lippmann
To create a minimum standard of life below which no human being can fall is the most elementary duty of the democratic state.
Walter Lippmann