Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern. Walter Lippmann More Quotes by Walter Lippmann More Quotes From Walter Lippmann Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends. Walter Lippmann constitution government enemy The only feeling that anyone can have about an event he does not experience is the feeling aroused by his mental image of that event ... For it is clear enough that under certain conditions men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities. Walter Lippmann feelings men reality Where mass opinion dominates the government, there is a morbid derangement of the true functions of power. The derangement brings about the enfeeblement, verging on paralysis, of the capacity to govern. This breakdown in the constitutional order is the cause of the precipitate and catastrophic decline of Western society. It may, if it cannot be arrested and reversed, bring about the fall of the West. Walter Lippmann government order fall A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them. Walter Lippmann depressing mean country The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples. Walter Lippmann usa adventure travel 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. Walter Lippmann cost education needs The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority. Walter Lippmann ethical majority-rule politics The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business. Walter Lippmann business simple people You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers. Walter Lippmann technology flower inspire What each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but on pictures made by himself or given to him... Walter Lippmann doe men world There is only one purpose to which a whole society can be directed by a deliberate plan. That purpose is war, and there is no other. Walter Lippmann plans purpose war The search for moral guidance which shall not depend upon external authority has invariably ended in the acknowledgment of some new authority. Walter Lippmann moral guidance authority The essential discovery of maturity has little if anything to do with information about the names, the locations, and the sequence of facts; it is the acquiring of a different sense of life, a different kind of intuition about the nature of things. Walter Lippmann maturity names discovery Free institutions are not the property of any majority. They do not confer upon majorities unlimited powers. The rights of the majority are limited rights. They are limited not only by the constitutional guarantees but by the moral principle implied in those guarantees. That principle is that men may not use the facilities of liberty to impair them. No man may invoke a right in order to destroy it. Walter Lippmann rights men order It is all very well to talk about being the captain of your soul. It is hard, and only a few heroes, saints, and geniuses have been the captains of their souls for any extended period of their lives. Walter Lippmann ambition soul hero Genius sees the dynamic purpose first, find reasons afterward. Walter Lippmann genius purpose firsts It is impossible to abolish either with a law or an axe the desires of men. Walter Lippmann law desire men Men can know more than their ancestors did if they start with a knowledge of what their ancestors had already learned....That is why a society can be progressive only if it conserves its traditions. Walter Lippmann progressive tradition men At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history. To human nature (of the sort conceived), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply. Walter Lippmann maps moral kind What a myth never contains is the critical power to separate its truth from its errors. Walter Lippmann myth errors truth
