Democracy is much too important to be left to public opinion. Walter Lippmann More Quotes by Walter Lippmann More Quotes From Walter Lippmann Industry is a better horse to ride than genius. Walter Lippmann horse genius business The man who will follow precedent, but never create one, is merely an obvious example of the routineer. You find him desperately numerous in the civil service, in the official bureaus. To him government is something given as unconditionally, as absolutely as ocean or hill. He goes on winding the tape that he finds. His imagination has rarely extricated itself from under the administrative machine to gain any sense of what a human, temporary contraption the whole affair is. What he thinks is the heavens above him is nothing but the roof. Walter Lippmann ocean men thinking Only the consciousness of a purpose that is mightier than any man and worthy of all men can fortify and inspirit and compose the souls of men. Walter Lippmann purpose soul men If the estimate of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs is correct, then Russia has lost the cold war in western Europe. Walter Lippmann russia europe war The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force. Walter Lippmann army war blood 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. Walter Lippmann society idols looks Photographs have the kind of authority over imagination to-day, which the printed word had yesterday, and the spoken word before that. They seem utterly real. They come, we imagine, directly to us without human meddling, and they are the most effortless food for the mind conceivable. Walter Lippmann printed-word real yesterday 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. Walter Lippmann prejudice life-is men 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 common-sense business leadership The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on. Walter Lippmann change success inspirational You don't have to preach honesty to men with a creative purpose. A genuine craftsman will not adulterate this product. The reason isn't because duty says he shouldn't, but because passion says he couldn't. Walter Lippmann passion honesty men It is so much easier to talk of poverty than to think of the poor, to argue the rights of capital than to see its results. Pretty soon we come to think of the theories and abstract ideas as things in themselves. Walter Lippmann rights ideas thinking 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. Walter Lippmann live-free exercise may The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision. Walter Lippmann light men moving Men fall into a routine when they are tired and slack: it has all the appearance of activity with few of its burdens. Walter Lippmann tired men fall The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into contact chiefly with persons who want to get something or to avoid something. Beyond this circle of seekers after privileges, individuals and organized minorities, he is aware of a large unorganized, indifferent mass of citizens who ask nothing in particular and rarely complain. The politician comes after a while to think that the art of politics is to satisfy the seekers after favors and to mollify the inchoate mass with noble sentiments and patriotic phrases. Walter Lippmann patriotic art thinking 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 tyrants events order Because the results are expressed in numbers, it is easy to make the mistake of thinking that the intelligence test is a measure like a foot ruler or a pair of scales. It is, of course, a quite different sort of measure. Intelligence is not an abstraction like length and weight; it is an exceedingly complicated notion - which nobody has yet succeeded in defining. Walter Lippmann feet mistake thinking 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. Walter Lippmann errors men order And the principle which distinguishes democracy from all other forms of government is that in a democracy the opposition not only is tolerated as constitutional but must be maintained because it is in fact indispensable. Walter Lippmann democracy liberty government
