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It is impossible to abolish either with a law or an axe the desires of men.

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
Abolish
Desires
Either
Impossible
Law
Desire
Men

More quotes by Walter Lippmann

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Whenever we accept an idea as authority instead of as instrument, an idol is set up. We worship the plough, and not the fruit.
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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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Franklin D. Roosevelt is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is no enemy of entrenched privilege. He is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President.
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We must protect the right of our opponents to speak because we must hear what they have to say.
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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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Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern.
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All men desire their own perfect adjustment, but they desire it, being finite men, on their own terms.
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We are quite rich enough to defend ourselves, whatever the cost. We must now learn that we are quite rich enough to educate ourselves as we need to be educated.
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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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One might point to the great illumination that has resulted from Freud's analysis of the abracadabra of our dreams. No one can any longer dismiss the fantasy because it is logically inconsistent, superficially absurd, or objectively untrue.
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The devil is merely a fallen angel, and when God lost Satan he lost one of his best lieutenants.
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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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Robinson Crusoe, the self-sufficient man, could not have lived in New York city.
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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.
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We are all captives of the picture in our head - our belief that the world we have experienced is the world that really exists.
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Modern men are afraid of the past. It is a record of human achievement, but its other face is human defeat.
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Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character.
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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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When men can no longer be theists, they must, if they are civilized, become humanists.
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