Quotes from Walter Lippmann

This is one of the paradoxes of the democratic movement -- that it loves a crowd and fears the individuals who compose it -- that the religion of humanity should have no faith in human beings.

Whereas each man claims his freedom as a matter of right, the freedom he accords to other men is a matter of toleration.

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.

The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.

In the blood of the martyrs to intolerance are the seeds of unbelief.

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

There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil - remain detached from the great

A long life in journalism convinced me many presidents ago that there should be a large air space between a journalist and the head of a state.

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.

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

Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurancesand the economy of effort it brings.

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is no enemy of entrenched privilege. He is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President.

A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society…. A great society is simply a big and complicated urban society.

Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark.

What each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but on pictures made by himself or given to him…. The way in which the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do.

There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and shame the devil.

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

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

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.

Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all the other virtues tired of the effort of willing they become fanatics about conservatism.

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.

Before you can begin to think about politics at all, you have to abandon the notion that there is a war between good men and bad men.

A really good diplomat does not go in for victories, even when he wins them.