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Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on the trivial and the mediocre.

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
Every
Bent
Fairly
Price
Aware
Intelligent
Muffled
Persons
Respectability
Soul
Trivial
Person
Mediocre

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Men can know more than their ancestors did if they start with a knowledge of what their ancestors had already learned....That is why a society can be progressive only if it conserves its traditions.
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A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. ... A great society is simply a big and complicated urban society.
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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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There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.
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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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A really good diplomat does not go in for victories, even when he wins them.
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In a place where everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks very much.
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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.
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When everyone thinks alike, no one thinks very much.
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We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilisations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern.
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No mariner ever enters upon a more uncharted sea than does the average human being born in the 20th century. Our ancestors know their way from birth through eternity we are puzzled about the day after tomorrow.
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When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.
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You don't have to preach honesty to men with a creative purpose. A genuine craftsman will not adulterate this product. The reason isn't because duty says he shouldn't, but because passion says he couldn't.
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Democracy is much too important to be left to public opinion.
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To understand is not only to pardon, but in the end to love.
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In the end, advertising rests upon the fact that consumers are a fickle and superstitious mob, incapable of any real judgment as to what it wants or how it is to get what it thinks it likes.
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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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The principles of the good society call for a concern with an order of being - which cannot be proved existentially to the sense organs - where it matters supremely that the human person is inviolable, that reason shall regulate the will, that truth shall prevail over error.
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Men fall into a routine when they are tired and slack: it has all the appearance of activity with few of its burdens.
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If all power is in the people, if there is no higher law than their will, and if by counting their votes, their will may be ascertained - then the people may entrust all their power to anyone, and the power of the pretender and the usurper is then legitimate. It is not to be challenged since it came originally from the sovereign people.
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