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The search for moral guidance which shall not depend upon external authority has invariably ended in the acknowledgment of some new authority.

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
Upon
Guidance
Depend
Ended
Search
Authority
Depends
Acknowledgment
Shall
Invariably
Moral
External

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Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible.
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A man cannot be a good doctor and keep telephoning his broker between patients nor a good lawyer with his eye on the ticker.
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When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.
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I demand from you in the name of your principles the rights which I shall deny to you later in the name of my principles.
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The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.
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Life can be swamped by sex very easily if sex is not normally satisfied.
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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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Run against the grain of a nation's genius and see where you get with your laws.
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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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The man who raises new issues has always been distasteful to politicians. He musses up what had been so tidily arranged.
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The thinker dies, but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal but ideas are immortal.
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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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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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The consent of the governed is more than a safeguard against ignorant tyrants: it is an insurance against benevolent despots as well.
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You don't have to preach honesty to men with creative purpose. Let a human being throw the engines of his soul into the making of something, and the instinct of workmanship will take care of his honesty.
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The prophecy of a world moving toward political unity is the light which guides all that is best, most vigorous, most truly alive in the work of our time.
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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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Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality.
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The central drama of our age is how the Western nations and the Asian peoples are to find a tolerable basis of co-existence.
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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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