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Walter Lippmann Quotes

1889–1974 United States

Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 – December 14, 1974) was a United States writer, journalist, and political commentator. With a career spanning 60 years he was among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War, coining the term "stereotype" in the modern psychological meaning, as well as critiquing media and democracy in his newspaper column and several books, most notably his 1922 book Public Opinion.

United States
Columnists
Editors
Journalists
Political commentators

Also known as: Walter Lippman

Random Walter Lippmann quote

38 quotes

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

A Preface to Politics (1913)

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.

The Stakes of Diplomacy (1915)

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

The Good Society (1937)

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

The Good Society (1937)

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

A Preface to Morals (1929)

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

Liberty and the News (1920)

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

The Stakes of Diplomacy (1915)

Art enlarges experience by admitting us to the inner life of others.

A Preface to Politics (1913)

There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the information by which to detect lies.

Liberty and the News (1920)

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

A Preface to Morals (1929)

Unless our ideas are questioned, they become part of the furniture of eternity.

The Stakes of Diplomacy (1915)

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

The Stakes of Diplomacy (1915)

The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.

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

Essays in The Public Philosophy (1955)

The central drama of our age is how the Western nations and the Asian peoples are to find a tolerable basis of co-existence.

The facts we see depend on where we are placed, and the habits of our eyes.

Public Opinion (1922)

Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character.

A Preface to Politics (1913)

The man who says that the world is a machine has really advanced no further than to say that he is so well satisfied with the analogy that he is through with searching any further.

A Preface to Morals (1929)

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

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

The Good Society (1937)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Walter Lippmann (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.