Quotes from Walter Lippmann

Every man whose business it is to think knows that he must for part of the day create about himself a pool of silence.

Men who are orthodox when they are young are in danger of being middle-aged all their lives.

A man cannot sleep in his cradle: whatever is useful must in the nature of life become useless.

Men fall into a routine when they are tired and slack: it has all the appearance of activity with few of its burdens.

A man who has humility will have acquired in the last reaches of his beliefs the saving doubt of his own certainty.

The self-evident truth which makes men invincible is that inalienably they are inviolable persons.

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.

The American's conviction that he must be able to look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell is the very essence of the free man's way of life.

A man cannot be a good doctor and keep telephoning his broker between patients nor a good lawyer with his eye on the ticker.

Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality.

We know that it is possible to harness desire to many interests, that evil is one form of a desire, and not the nature of it.

Nothing is easier than to simplify life and them make a philosophy about it. The trouble is that the resulting philosophy is true only of that simplified life.

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

The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority.

The devil is merely a fallen angel, and when God lost Satan he lost one of his best lieutenants.

It was in the recognition that there is in each man a final essence, that is to say an immortal soul which only God can judge, that a limit was set upon the dominion of men over men.

Even God has been defended with nonsense.

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.

Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends.

Popular government has not yet been proved to guarantee, always and everywhere, good government.

Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern.

It is easier to develop great power than it is to know how to use it wisely.

The search for moral guidance which shall not depend upon external authority has invariably ended in the acknowledgment of some new authority.

All achievement should be measured in human happiness.