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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
Men
Fictitious
Lifetime
Personality
Usually
Public
Known
Great
Even

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It is better to catch the idol-maker than to smash each idol.
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In making the great experiment of governing people by consent rather than by coercion, it is not sufficient that the party in power should have a majority. It is just as necessary that the party in power should never outrage the minority.
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When everyone thinks alike, no one thinks very much.
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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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Whatever truth you contribute to the world will be one lucky shot in a thousand misses. You cannot be right by holding your breath and taking precautions.
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The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples.
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Our life is managed from behind the scenes: we are actors in dramas that we cannot interpret. Of almost no decisive event can we say: this was our own choosing. We happen upon careers, necessity pushing, blind inclination pulling. If we stop to think we are amazed that we should be what we are.
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The American's conviction that he must be able to look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell is the very essence of the free man's way of life.
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The only feeling that anyone can have about an event he does not experience is the feeling aroused by his mental image of that event ... For it is clear enough that under certain conditions men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities.
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There are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human.
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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.
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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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Before you can begin to think about politics at all, you have to abandon the notion that there is a war between good men and bad men.
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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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Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event.
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Leaders are the custodians of a nation's ideals, of the beliefs it cherishes, of its permanent hopes, of the faith which makes a nation out of a mere aggregation of individuals.
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The self-evident truth which makes men invincible is that inalienably they are inviolable persons.
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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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Men are mortal, but ideas are immortal.
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