No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people. Walter Lippmann More Quotes by Walter Lippmann More Quotes From Walter Lippmann The systems of stereotypes may be the core of our personal tradition, the defenses of our position in society. They are an ordered more or less consistent picture of the world, to which our habits, our tastes, our capacities, our comforts and our hopes have adjusted themselves. They may not be a complete picture of the world, but they are a picture of a possible world to which we are adapted. In that world, people and things have their well-known places, and do certain expected things. We feel at home there. We fit in. We are members. Walter Lippmann home may people Usually it is the stereotyped shape assumed by an event at an obvious place that uncovers the run of the news. Walter Lippmann news events running The size of a man's income has considerable effect on his access to the world beyond his neighborhood. With money he can overcome almost every tangible obstacle of communication, he can travel, buy books and periodicals, and bring within the range of his attention almost any known fact of the world. Walter Lippmann communication men book All men desire their own perfect adjustment, but they desire it, being finite men, on their own terms. Walter Lippmann perfect desire men To understand is not only to pardon, but in the end to love. Walter Lippmann forgiveness understanding love The facts we see depend on where we are placed and the habits of our eyes. Walter Lippmann habit eye facts Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created. Walter Lippmann machines records tradition Though it is disguised by the illusion that a bureaucracy accountable to a majority of voters, and susceptible to the pressure of organized minorities, is not exercising compulsion, it is evident that the more varied and comprehensive the regulation becomes, the more the state becomes a despotic power as against the individual. For the fragment of control over the government which he exercises through his vote is in no effective sense proportionate to the authority exercised over him by the government. Walter Lippmann minorities government exercise Life is an irreversible process and for that reason its future can never be a repetition of the past. Walter Lippmann opinion life-is past There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral. Walter Lippmann ethics morality moral Art enlarges experience by admitting us to the inner life of others. Walter Lippmann lives-of-others admitting art It is so much easier to talk of poverty than to think of the poor. Walter Lippmann poverty poor thinking 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. Walter Lippmann loss class civilization Liberty may be an uncomfortable blessing unless you know what to do with it. That is why so many freed slaves returned to their masters, why so many emancipated women are only too glad to give up the racket and settle down. For between announcing that you will live your own life, and the living of it lie the real difficulties of any awakening. Walter Lippmann giving-up real lying You don't have to preach honesty to men with creative purpose. Let a human being throw the engines of his soul into the making of something, and the instinct of workmanship will take care of his honesty. Walter Lippmann honesty creative men Whereas each man claims his freedom as a matter of right, the freedom he accords to other men is a matter of toleration. Walter Lippmann tolerance liberty men Liberty without discipline cannot survive. Without order and authority in the spirit of man the free way of life leads through weakness, disorganization, self-indulgence, and moral indifference to the destruction of freedom itself. The tragic ordeal through which the Western world is passing was prepared in the long period of easy liberty during which men forgot the elementary truths of human existence. They forgot that their freedom was achieved by heroic sacrifice. Walter Lippmann sacrifice clever life Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality. Walter Lippmann personality lifetime men For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day. Walter Lippmann democracy book people 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. Walter Lippmann power law people
