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Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality.

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
Usually
Public
Known
Great
Even
Men
Fictitious
Lifetime
Personality

More quotes by Walter Lippmann

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There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral.
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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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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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Men have been barbarians much longer than they have been civilized. They are only precariously civilized, and within us there is the propensity, persistent as the force of gravity, to revert under stress and strain, under neglect or temptation, to our first natures.
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You don't have to preach honesty to men with creative purpose. Let a human being throw the engines of his soul into the making of something, and the instinct of workmanship will take care of his honesty.
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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.
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The mass of the reading public is not interested in learning and assimilating the results of accurate investigation.
Walter Lippmann
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At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history. To human nature (of the sort conceived), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply.
Walter Lippmann
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Genius sees the dynamic purpose first, find reasons afterward.
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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.
Walter Lippmann
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To understand is not only to pardon, but in the end to love.
Walter Lippmann
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The balancing of present wants against the future is really the central problem of ethics.
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Industry is a better horse to ride than genius.
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When everyone thinks alike, no one thinks very much.
Walter Lippmann
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Democracy is much too important to be left to public opinion.
Walter Lippmann
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Brains, you know, are suspect in the Republican Party.
Walter Lippmann
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A really good diplomat does not go in for victories, even when he wins them.
Walter Lippmann
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Life can be swamped by sex very easily if sex is not normally satisfied.
Walter Lippmann
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Ages when custom is unsettled are necessarily ages of prophecy. The moralist cannot teach what is revealed he must reveal what can be taught. He has to seek insight rather than to preach.
Walter Lippmann
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The private citizen, beset by partisan appeals for the loan of his Public Opinion, will soon see, perhaps, that these appeals are not a compliment to his intelligence, but an imposition on his good nature and an insult to his sense of evidence.
Walter Lippmann