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The common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialised class.

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
Opinion
Public
Specialised
Class
Elude
Interest
Managed
Common
Largely
Entirely
Interests
Internet

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The search for moral guidance which shall not depend upon external authority has invariably ended in the acknowledgment of some new authority.
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It is better to catch the idol-maker than to smash each idol.
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Freedom to speak... can be maintained only by promoting debate.
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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 great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples.
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All men desire their own perfect adjustment, but they desire it, being finite men, on their own terms.
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There are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human.
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Ours is a problem in which deception has become organized and strong where truth is poisoned at its source one in which the skill of the shrewdest brains is devoted to misleading a bewildered people.
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The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.
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Here lay the political genius of Franklin Roosevelt: that in his own time he knew what were the questions that had to be answered, even though he himself did not always find the full answer.
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Football strategy does not originate in a scrimmage: it is useless to expect solutions in a political campaign.
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We are concerned in public affairs, but immersed in our private ones.
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The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority.
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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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Usually it is the stereotyped shape assumed by an event at an obvious place that uncovers the run of the news.
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The writers who have nothing to say, are the ones you can buy, the others have too high a price.
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If all power is in the people, if there is no higher law than their will, and if by counting their votes, their will may be ascertained - then the people may entrust all their power to anyone, and the power of the pretender and the usurper is then legitimate. It is not to be challenged since it came originally from the sovereign people.
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Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.
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I demand from you in the name of your principles the rights which I shall deny to you later in the name of my principles.
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