Walter Lippmann quote: "The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want."

There is nothing so good for the human soul as the discovery that there are ancient and flourishing ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Brains, you know, are suspect in the Republican Party.
WALTER LIPPMANN

Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all the other virtues; tired of the ef...
WALTER LIPPMANN

We are all captives of the picture in our head - our belief that the world we have experienced is th...
WALTER LIPPMANN

In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Ages when custom is unsettled are necessarily ages of prophecy. The moralist cannot teach what is re...
WALTER LIPPMANN

A man has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learn...
WALTER LIPPMANN

When all men think alike, no one thinks very much.
WALTER LIPPMANN

The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating in...
WALTER LIPPMANN

For in the absence of debate unrestricted utterance leads to the degradation of opinion. By a kind o...
WALTER LIPPMANN

If the estimate of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs is correct, then Russia has lost the cold ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The central drama of our age is how the Western nations and the Asian peoples are to find a tolerabl...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Upon the standard to which the wise and honest will now repair it is written: You have lived the eas...
WALTER LIPPMANN

In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Franklin D. Roosevelt is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is no enemy of entrenched p...
WALTER LIPPMANN

I generalized rashly: That is what kills political writing, this absurd pretence that you are delive...
WALTER LIPPMANN

For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people deter...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Yet this corporate being, though so insubstantial to our senses, binds, in Burkes words, a man to hi...
WALTER LIPPMANN

We shall assume that what each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but by picture...
WALTER LIPPMANN

It is the very essence of despotism that it can never afford to fail. This is what distinguishes it...
WALTER LIPPMANN

What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Except in the sacred texts of democracy and in the incantations of orators, we hardly take the troub...
WALTER LIPPMANN

It is all very well to talk about being the captain of your soul. It is hard, and only a few heroes...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The search for moral guidance which shall not depend upon external authority has invariably ended in...
WALTER LIPPMANN

..the Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It c...
WALTER LIPPMANN

For the principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercise...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The war for liberty never ends. One day liberty has to be defended against the power of wealth, on ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Free institutions are not the property of any majority. They do not confer upon majorities unlimite...
WALTER LIPPMANN

No serious historian of politics would imagine that he had accounted for the protective tariff of th...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into con...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as...
WALTER LIPPMANN

If school success were a reliable index of human capacity, we should be able to go a step further an...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themsel...
WALTER LIPPMANN

A useful definition of liberty is obtained only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main busi...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its...
WALTER LIPPMANN

When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restles...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The disesteem into which moralists have fallen is due at bottom to their failure to see that in an a...
WALTER LIPPMANN

There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral.
WALTER LIPPMANN

Modern men are afraid of the past. It is a record of human achievement, but its other face is human ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The private citizen, beset by partisan appeals for the loan of his Public Opinion, will soon see, pe...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Where mass opinion dominates the government, there is a morbid derangement of the true functions of ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.
WALTER LIPPMANN

If all power is in the people, if there is no higher law than their will, and if by counting their v...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress. Ignore them and statesman...
WALTER LIPPMANN

We forge gradually our greatest instrument for understanding the world -- introspection. We discover...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of h...
WALTER LIPPMANN

A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the r...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper unpleasant truths in the master'...
WALTER LIPPMANN

We are all captives of the picture in our head -- our belief that the world we have experienced is t...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.
WALTER LIPPMANN

Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new socia...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

In really hard times the rules of the game are altered. The inchoate mass begins to stir. It becomes...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power
WALTER LIPPMANN

What we call a democratic society might be defined for certain purposes as one in which the majority...
WALTER LIPPMANN

This is one of the paradoxes of the democratic movement -- that it loves a crowd and fears the indiv...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Unless democracy is to commit suicide by consenting to its own destruction, it will have to find som...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their thoughts, their models, the books they ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

When men can no longer be theists, they must, if they are civilized, become humanists.
WALTER LIPPMANN

It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The man who will follow precedent, but never create one, is merely an obvious example of the routine...
WALTER LIPPMANN

In making the great experiment of governing people by consent rather than by coercion, it is not suf...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. I...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learn...
WALTER LIPPMANN

People that are orthodox when they are young are in danger of being middle-aged all their lives.
WALTER LIPPMANN

Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of socialism as stupid, se...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The first principle of a civilized state is that the power is legitimate only when it is under contr...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Only the consciousness of a purpose that is mightier than any man and worthy of all men can fortify ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main ballpark.
WALTER LIPPMANN

An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Let a human being throw the energies of his soul into the making of something, and the instinct of w...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The principles of the good society call for a concern with an order of being -- which cannot be prov...
WALTER LIPPMANN

In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forc...
WALTER LIPPMANN

There is no arguing with the pretenders to a divine knowledge and to a divine mission. They are poss...
WALTER LIPPMANN

No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Once you touch the biographies of human beings, the notion that political beliefs are logically dete...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always lea...
WALTER LIPPMANN

He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
WALTER LIPPMANN

When men are brought face to face with their opponents, forced to listen and learn and mend their id...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority.
WALTER LIPPMANN

Men can know more than their ancestors did if they start with a knowledge of what their ancestors ha...
WALTER LIPPMANN

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.
WALTER LIPPMANN

Football strategy does not originate in a scrimmage: it is useless to expect solutions in a politica...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The effort to calculate exactly what the voters want at each particular moment leaves out of account...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Because the results are expressed in numbers, it is easy to make the mistake of thinking that the in...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much.
WALTER LIPPMANN

Love endures only when the lovers love many things together and not merely each other.
WALTER LIPPMANN

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom; the music is nothing if the audience is deaf
WALTER LIPPMANN

The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. I...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which is at the...
WALTER LIPPMANN

It is impossible to abolish either with a law or an ax the desires of men
WALTER LIPPMANN

The smashing of idols is in itself such a preoccupation that it is almost impossible for the iconoc...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The world is a better place to live in because it contains human beings who will give up ease and se...
WALTER LIPPMANN

We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a ver...
WALTER LIPPMANN

I would have carved on the portals of the National Press Club, "Put not your trust in princes." Only...
WALTER LIPPMANN

True opinions can prevail only if the facts to which they refer are known; if they are not known, fa...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Successful politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placa...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restles...
WALTER LIPPMANN

A long life in journalism convinced me many presidents ago that there should be a large air space be...
WALTER LIPPMANN

This is one of the paradoxes of the democratic movement - that it loves a crowd and fears the indivi...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Industry is a better horse to ride than genius.
WALTER LIPPMANN

Certainly he is not of the generation that regards honesty as the best policy. However, he does rega...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into con...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Nobody has worked harder at inactivity with such a force of character, with such unremitting attenti...
WALTER LIPPMANN

There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil - remain deta...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Unless democracy is to commit suicide by consenting to its own destruction, it will have to find som...
WALTER LIPPMANN

You don't have to preach honesty to men with creative purpose. Let a human being throw the energies ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Only the consciousness of a purpose that is mightier than any man and worthy of all men can fortify ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The senator might remember that the Evangelists had a more inspiring subject.
WALTER LIPPMANN

The lesson of the tremendous days through which we are passing is that men cannot live upon the achi...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The principles of the good society call for a concern with an order of being -- which cannot be prov...
WALTER LIPPMANN

We forge gradually our greatest instrument for understanding the world - introspection. We discover ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Society can only exist on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no-one says...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Democracy is much too important to be left to public opinion.
WALTER LIPPMANN

A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the r...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The writers who have nothing to say, are the ones you can buy, the others have too high a price
WALTER LIPPMANN

Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed
WALTER LIPPMANN

The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption...
WALTER LIPPMANN

You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steamroller will not plant flow...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The thinker dies, but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal; but ideas ar...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Men who are "orthodox" when they are young are in danger of being middle-aged all their lives
WALTER LIPPMANN

The central drama of our age is how the Western nations and the Asian peoples are to find a tolerabl...
WALTER LIPPMANN

We are quite rich enough to defend ourselves, whatever the cost. We must now learn that we are quite...
WALTER LIPPMANN

When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Robinson Crusoe, the self-sufficient man, could not have lived in New York City.
WALTER LIPPMANN

Men are mortal, but ideas are immortal.
WALTER LIPPMANN

While the right to talk may be the beginning of freedom, the necessity of listening is what makes th...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible.
WALTER LIPPMANN

Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the eco...
WALTER LIPPMANN

There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral
WALTER LIPPMANN

What a shame to waste those great shots on the practice tee.
WALTER LIPPMANN

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and will to carr...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to ...
WALTER LIPPMANN

The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learn...
WALTER LIPPMANN

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much
WALTER LIPPMANN

In the blood of the martyrs to intolerance are the seeds of unbelief
WALTER LIPPMANN

There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.
WALTER LIPPMANN

If you ignore what a man desires, and you deny the very source of his power.
WALTER LIPPMANN

In some measure, stimuli from the outside, especially when they are printed or spoken words, evoke s...
WALTER LIPPMANN

I got quite good results from protein plates.
GABRIEL LIPPMANN

Most of these pictures, taken while travelling, were developed on the mantelpiece of a hotel room, w...
GABRIEL LIPPMANN

The series of photographic operations, developing, washing, final drying, takes about quarter of an ...
GABRIEL LIPPMANN

During exposure, interference takes place between the incident rays and those reflected by the mirro...
GABRIEL LIPPMANN

The problem of direct colour photography has been facing us since the turn of the last century.
GABRIEL LIPPMANN

This result is due to a phenomenon of interference which occurs within the sensitive layer.
GABRIEL LIPPMANN

In the case of composite colour, an infinity of systems must be obtained for maxima infinitely sligh...
GABRIEL LIPPMANN

The plate at each point only sends back to the eye the simple colour imprinted. The other colours ar...
GABRIEL LIPPMANN

When the shot is afterwards subjected to white light, colour appears because of selective reflection...
GABRIEL LIPPMANN

Life is short and progress is slow.
GABRIEL LIPPMANN

The length of exposure (one minute in sunlight) is still too long for the portrait. It was fifteen m...
GABRIEL LIPPMANN

The thinker dies, but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal, but ideas ar...
WILLIAM LIPPMANN

Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock.
WALTER BENJAMIN

America's health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.
WALTER CRONKITE

I look forward to making tangible and inspirational contributions to the Houston Technology Center&#...
WALTER O'BRIEN

Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memori...
WALTER BENJAMIN

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.
WALTER BENJAMIN

I can never believe how much time and energy and money and talent and everything else is being poure...
WALTER BECKER

There are some things that I write that I know are personal in a way, or the gag is so obscure that ...
WALTER BECKER

We have been fortunate enough to do something that has always been out of the mainstream and yet hav...
WALTER BECKER

All our wives are experimental psychologists.
WALTER BECKER

If there's a strange way to do something, I would certainly like to know about it. I feel that I...
WALTER BECKER

I always look for the weirdest note to land on. I felt that that was the least I could do for the gr...
WALTER BECKER

From a linguistic point of view, you can't really take much objection to the notion that a show ...
WALTER BECKER

That's sort of what we wanted to do: conquer from the margins, sort of find our place in the mid...
WALTER BECKER

You have a kid, and it's like, 'He's gotta go to college! Gotta have some clothes!'
WALTER BECKER

'8 Miles to Pancake Day' is a reconciliation of the classic space-time dilemma.
WALTER BECKER

It seemed like the more complex the music we were playing, the less able we were to guarantee its co...
WALTER BECKER

There was a film called 'FM,' and we were asked to do the title song. And I said, 'Does ...
WALTER BECKER

'Deacon Blues' was special for me. It's the only time I remember mixing a record all day...
WALTER BECKER

The protagonist in 'Deacon Blues' is a triple-L loser - an L-L-L Loser. It's not so much...
WALTER BECKER

There's a great freedom in writing by yourself. You can write anything you want.
WALTER BECKER

I spent a couple of years not doing any music or anything, just here in Hawaii trying to get healthy...
WALTER BECKER

I'm not interested in a rock/jazz fusion.
WALTER BECKER

It's great fun to play with a really good band.
WALTER BECKER

People are really exercised about one particular thing, and that is themselves. They will bore you e...
WALTER BECKER

Rock music is being systematically merged with fashion.
WALTER BECKER

Cynicism, I contend, is the wailing of someone who believes that things are, or should be, or could ...
WALTER BECKER

When you start to work with someone, there's a negotiation that takes place involving what's...
WALTER BECKER

My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of th...
WALTER BECKER

I listen to a mixture of old jazz, contemporary, pop, some world beat stuff and various odds and end...
WALTER BECKER

I'm a self-taught musician aside from what I've been able to pick up from other players.
WALTER BECKER

Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.
WALTER BAGEHOT

You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-d...
WALTER BAGEHOT

An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time ...
WALTER BAGEHOT

No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist...
WALTER BAGEHOT

The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opi...
WALTER BAGEHOT

No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.
WALTER BAGEHOT

Walter Lippmann

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