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All men desire their own perfect adjustment, but they desire it, being finite men, on their own terms.

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
Perfect
Desire
Men
Adjustment
Finite
Terms
Term

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What each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but on pictures made by himself or given to him...
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The wiser a man is, it seems to me, the more vividly he can see the future as part of the evolving present. He doesn't break the flow of life, he directs it, hastens it, but preserves its continuity.
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There is but one bond of peace that is both permanent and enriching: The increasing knowledge of the world in which experiment occurs.
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To understand is not only to pardon, but in the end to love.
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Life can be swamped by sex very easily if sex is not normally satisfied.
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The unions are the first feeble effort to conquer the industrial jungle for democratic life. They may not succeed, but if they don't their failure will be a tragedy for civilization, a loss of cooperative effort, a baulking of energy, and the fixing in American life of a class-structure.
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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.
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Our life is managed from behind the scenes: we are actors in dramas that we cannot interpret. Of almost no decisive event can we say: this was our own choosing. We happen upon careers, necessity pushing, blind inclination pulling. If we stop to think we are amazed that we should be what we are.
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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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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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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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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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The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority.
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The smashing of idols is in itself such a preoccupation that it is almost impossible for the iconoclast to look clearly into a future when there will not be many idols left to smash.
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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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The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
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Democracy is much too important to be left to public opinion.
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Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible.
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Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.
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Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern.
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