Quotes By Walter Lippmann

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

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

The private citizen, beset by partisan appeals for the loan of his Public Opinion, will soon see, perhaps, that these appeals are not a compliment to his intelligence, but an imposition on his good nature and an insult to his sense of evidence.

The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.

The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it the representative of a whole class.

The time has come to stop beating our heads against stone walls under the illusion that we have been appointed policeman to the human race.

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

In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.

The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opposition than from his fervent supporters.

In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers, always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents.

Industry is a better horse to ride than genius.

There is no arguing with the pretenders to a divine knowledge and to a divine mission. They are possessed with the sin of pride, they have yielded to the perennial temptation.

A man has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.

Once you touch the biographies of human beings, the notion that political beliefs are logically determined collapses like a pricked balloon.

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