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There are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human.

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
Human
Humans
Regal
Self
Selves
Distinct
Private
Least
Public
Two

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We forge gradually our greatest instrument for understanding the world - introspection. We discover that humanity may resemble us very considerably - that the best way of knowing the inwardness of our neighbors is to know ourselves.
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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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To keep a faith pure, man had better retire to a monastery.
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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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The common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialised class.
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The balancing of present wants against the future is really the central problem of ethics.
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Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress. Ignore them and statesmanship is irrelevant fail to use them and it is weak.
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Before you can begin to think about politics at all, you have to abandon the notion that there is a war between good men and bad men.
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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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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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A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern. For there is no adequate way in which it can keep itself informed about what the people of the country are thinking and doing and wanting.
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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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For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.
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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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The unexamined life, said Socrates, is unfit to be lived by man. This is the virtue of liberty, and the ground on which we may justify our belief in it, that it tolerates error in order to serve truth.
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Even God has been defended with nonsense.
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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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You and I are forever at the mercy of the census-taker and the census-maker. That impertinent fellow who goes from house to house is one of the real masters of the statistical situation. The other is the man who organizes the results.
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It is easier to develop great power than it is to know how to use it wisely.
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