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The whole speculation about morality is an effort to find a way of living which men who live it will instinctively feel is good.

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
Feel
Instinctively
Feels
Speculation
Way
Morality
Good
Effort
Men
Living
Find
Live
Whole

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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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The size of a man's income has considerable effect on his access to the world beyond his neighborhood. With money he can overcome almost every tangible obstacle of communication, he can travel, buy books and periodicals, and bring within the range of his attention almost any known fact of the world.
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Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort it brings.
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The disesteem into which moralists have fallen is due at bottom to their failure to see that in an age like this one the function of the moralist is not to exhort men to be good but to elucidate what the good is. The problem of sanctions is secondary.
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Ours is a problem in which deception has become organized and strong where truth is poisoned at its source one in which the skill of the shrewdest brains is devoted to misleading a bewildered people.
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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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People who are tremendously concerned about their identification, their individuality, their self-expression, or their sense of humor, always seem to be missing the very things they pursue.
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The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them in relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.
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Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress. Ignore them and statesmanship is irrelevant fail to use them and it is weak.
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The public interest may be presumed to be what men would choose if they saw clearly, thought rationally, acted disinterestedly and benevolently.
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It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.
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Unless our ideas are questioned, they become part of the furniture of eternity.
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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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There are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human.
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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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The facts we see depend on where we are placed and the habits of our eyes.
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The balancing of present wants against the future is really the central problem of ethics.
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There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral.
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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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Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality.
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