A biography for Walter Lippmannhasn’t been written yet.
“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.”
“No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.”
“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.”
“Men command fewer words than they have ideas to express, and language, as Jean Paul said, is a dictionary of faded metaphors.”
“It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.”
“Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort it brings.”
“The best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper unpleasant truths in the master's ear. It is the court fool, not the foolish courtier, whom the king can least afford to lose.”
“Ages when custom is unsettled are necessarily ages of prophecy. The moralist cannot teach what is revealed; he must reveal what can be taught. He has to seek insight rather than to preach.”
“Once you touch the biographies of human beings, the notion that political beliefs are logically determined collapses like a pricked balloon.”
“הדרמה העיקרית של דורנו היא כיצד מדינות המערב והעמים באסיה יוכלו למצוא בסיס לחיים משותפים.”
“דרושה חוכמה כדי להבין חוכמה. המוזיקה היא כלום אם הקהל חירש.”
“כאשר הכול חושבים באורח דומה – איש אינו חושב.”
“המבחן האמיתי של מנהיג הוא בהשאירו אחריו בנפשם של המונהגים את השכנוע והרצון להמשיך.”
“Industry is a better horse to ride than genius.”
“Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.”
“Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main ballpark.”
“The way in which the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do.”
“The first principle of a civilized state is that the power is legitimate only when it is under contract.”
“The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth.”
“Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience.”