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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.
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
Interest
Disinterestedly
Thought
Presumed
May
Rationally
Would
Acted
Men
Clearly
Saws
Choose
Public
More quotes by Walter Lippmann
Art enlarges experience by admitting us to the inner life of others.
Walter Lippmann
The common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialised class.
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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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The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opposition than from his fervent supporters.
Walter Lippmann
Inevitably our opinions cover a bigger space, a longer reach of time, a greater number of things, than we can directly observe. They have, therefore, to be pieced together out of what others have reported and what we can imagine.
Walter Lippmann
The disesteem into which moralists have fallen is due at bottom to their failure to see that in an age like this one the function of the moralist is not to exhort men to be good but to elucidate what the good is. The problem of sanctions is secondary.
Walter Lippmann
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.
Walter Lippmann
All men desire their own perfect adjustment, but they desire it, being finite men, on their own terms.
Walter Lippmann
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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We are quite rich enough to defend ourselves, whatever the cost. We must now learn that we are quite rich enough to educate ourselves as we need to be educated.
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Even God has been defended with nonsense.
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It is better to catch the idol-maker than to smash each idol.
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It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.
Walter Lippmann
Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on the trivial and the mediocre.
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When everyone thinks alike, no one thinks very much.
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The news is not a mirror of social conditions, but the report of an aspect that has obtruded itself.
Walter Lippmann
There is but one bond of peace that is both permanent and enriching: The increasing knowledge of the world in which experiment occurs.
Walter Lippmann
It is in time of peace that the value of life is fixed. The test of war reveals it.
Walter Lippmann
The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.
Walter Lippmann
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.
Walter Lippmann
