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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.

Walter Lippmann

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Walter Lippmann
Age: 85 †
Born: 1889
Born: September 23
Died: 1974
Died: December 14
Journalist
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New York City
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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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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 genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.
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We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy's side of the front is always propaganda and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace.
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In the blood of the martyrs to intolerance are the seeds of unbelief
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The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth.
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The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority.
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Nothing is easier than to simplify life and them make a philosophy about it. The trouble is that the resulting philosophy is true only of that simplified life.
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The effort to calculate exactly what the voters want at each particular moment leaves out of account the fact that when they are troubled the thing the voters most want is to be told what to want.
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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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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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Inevitably our opinions cover a bigger space, a longer reach of time, a greater number of things, than we can directly observe. They have, therefore, to be pieced together out of what others have reported and what we can imagine.
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No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.
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The mass of the reading public is not interested in learning and assimilating the results of accurate investigation.
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When men are brought face to face with their opponents, forced to listen and learn and mend their ideas, they cease to be children and savages and begin to live like civilized men. Then only is freedom a reality, when men may voice their opinions because they must examine their opinions.
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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.
Walter Lippmann
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What a myth never contains is the critical power to separate its truth from its errors.
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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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Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created.
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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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