Quote

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.

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
Easier
Philosophy
Trouble
True
Nothing
Make
Simplified
Life
Resulting
Simplify

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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 invisible government [bosses] is malign. But the evil doesn't come from the fact that it plays horse with the Newtonian theory of the constitution. What is dangerous about it is that we do not see it, cannot use it, and are compelled to submit to it.
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A more conscious life is one in which a man is conscious not only of what he sees, but of the prejudices with which he sees it.
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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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A really good diplomat does not go in for victories, even when he wins them.
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Whereas each man claims his freedom as a matter of right, the freedom he accords to other men is a matter of toleration.
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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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Behind innocence there gathers a clotted mass of superstition, of twisted and misdirected impulse clandestine flirtation, fads, and ragtime fill the unventilated mind.
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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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The first principle of a civilized state is that power is legitimate only when it is under contract.
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Life is an irreversible process and for that reason its future can never be a repetition of the past.
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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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It is often very illuminating...to ask yourself how you got at the facts on which you base your opinion. Who actually saw, heard, felt, counted, named the thing, about which you have an opinion?
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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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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.
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The press does not tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about.
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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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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 time has come to stop beating our heads against stone walls under the illusion that we have been appointed policeman to the human race.
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Even God has been defended with nonsense.
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