Walter Lippmann Quotes

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

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

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

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

In a democracy the opposition is not only tolerated as constitutional but must be maintained because it is indispensable.

While the right to talk may be the beginning of freedom the necessity of listening is what makes the right important.

...we can best understand the furies of war and politics by remembering that almost the whole of each party believes absolutely in its picture of the opposition, that it takes as fact, not what is, but what it supposes to be the fact.

There are portions of the sovereign people who spend most of their spare time and spare money on motoring and comparing motor cars, on bridge-whist and post-mortems, on moving pictures and potboilers, talking always to the same people with minute variations on the same old themes. They cannot really be said to suffer from censorship, or secrecy, the high cost or the difficulty of communication. They suffer from anemia, from lack of appetite and curiosity for the human scene. Theirs is no problem of access to the world outside. Worlds of interest are waiting for them to explore, and they do not enter.