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A man cannot sleep in his cradle: whatever is useful must in the nature of life become useless.

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
Cannot
Become
Usefulness
Must
Cradle
Men
Useless
Life
Useful
Sleep
Whatever
Nature

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To create a minimum standard of life below which no human being can fall is the most elementary duty of the democratic state.
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Whether or not birth control is eugenic, hygienic, and economic, it is the most revolutionary practice in the history of sexual morals.
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To keep a faith pure, man had better retire to a monastery.
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Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.
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Nobody has yet found a way of bombing that can prevent foot soldiers from walking.
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The press does not tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about.
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Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends.
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When men can no longer be theists, they must, if they are civilized, become humanists.
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The Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively.
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It is in time of peace that the value of life is fixed. The test of war reveals it.
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There are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human.
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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.
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A useful definition of liberty is obtained only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main business of human life, that is to say, in the process by which men educate their responses and learn to control their environment.
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A large plural society cannot be governed without recognizing that, transcending its plural interests, there is a rational order with a superior common law.
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And the principle which distinguishes democracy from all other forms of government is that in a democracy the opposition not only is tolerated as constitutional but must be maintained because it is in fact indispensable.
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There is nothing disastrous in the temporary nature of our ideas. They are always that. But there may very easily be a train of evil in the self-deception which regards them as final. I think God will forgive us our skepticism sooner than our Inquisitions.
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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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Yet this corporate being, though so insubstantial to our senses, binds, in Burkes words, a man to his country with ties which though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. That is why young men die in battle for their countrys sake and why old men plant trees they will never sit under.
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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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