Quote

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.

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
May
Final
Inquisition
Ideas
Finals
Disastrous
Nothing
Forgiving
Regards
Self
Easily
Skepticism
Always
Train
Deception
Think
Regard
Sooner
Thinking
Evil
Temporary
Nature
Forgive
Inquisitions

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The essential discovery of maturity has little if anything to do with information about the names, the locations, and the sequence of facts it is the acquiring of a different sense of life, a different kind of intuition about the nature of things.
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In places where men are used to differences they inevitably become tolerant.
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Ages when custom is unsettled are necessarily ages of prophecy. The moralist cannot teach what is revealed he must reveal what can be taught. He has to seek insight rather than to preach.
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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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The best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper unpleasant truths in the master's ear. It is the court fool, not the foolish courtier, whom the king can least afford to lose.
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Where two factions see vividly each its own aspect, and contrive their own explanations of what they see, it is almost impossible for them to credit each other with honesty.
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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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In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.
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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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The true speech of man is idiomatic, if not of the earth and sky, then at least of the saloon and the bleachers.
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It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.
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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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There is no arguing with the pretenders to a divine knowledge and to a divine mission. They are possessed with the sin of pride, they have yielded to the perennial temptation.
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Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power.
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Successful ... politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies.
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We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception.
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To keep a faith pure, man had better retire to a monastery.
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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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Life is an irreversible process and for that reason its future can never be a repetition of the past.
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