Walter Lippmann Quotes

If the estimate of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs is correct, then Russia has lost the cold war in western Europe.

[T]here is nothing disastrous in the temporary nature of our ideas. They are always that. But there may very easily be a train of evil in the self-deception which regards them as final. I think God will forgive us our skepticism sooner than our Inquisitions.

In places where men are used to differences they inevitably become tolerant.

A large plural society cannot be governed without recognizing that, transcending its plural interests, there is a rational order with a superior common law.

Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.

Democracy is a meaningless word unless it signifies that differences of opinion have been expressed, represented, and even satisfied in the decision.

[T]he modern man who has ceased to believe, without ceasing to be credulous, hangs, as it were, between heaven and earth, and is at rest nowhere.

You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steam-roller will not plant flowers.

[W]hether or not birth control is eugenic, hygienic, and economic, it is the most revolutionary practice in the history of sexual morals.

Looking back we can see how indirectly we know the environment in which nevertheless we live. We can see that the news of it comes to us now fast, now slowly; but that whatever we believe to be a true picture, we treat as if it were the environment itself.

A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. ...Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern. For there is no adequate way in which it can keep itself informed about what the people of the country are thinking and doing and wanting.

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.

[A]ll achievement should be measured in human happiness.

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

[T]here 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.