FridayJan 09, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 - December 14, 1974) was an influential American writer, journalist, and political commentator.
It requires wisdom to understand wisdom; the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.
We forge gradually our greatest instrument for understanding the world introspection. We discover that humanity may resemble us very considerably that the best way of knowing the inwardness of our neighbors is to know ourselves.
Without order or authority in the spirit of man the free way of life leads through weakness, disorganization, self-indulgence, and moral indifference to the destruction of freedom itself. The tragic ordeal through which the Western world is passing was prepared in the long period of easy liberty, during which men ... forgot that their freedom was achieved by heroic sacrifice.... They forgot that their rights were founded on their duties.... They thought it clever to be cynical, enlightened to be unbelieving, and sensible to be soft.
While the right to talk may be the beginning of freedom, the necessity of listening is what makes that right important.
To understand is not only to pardon but in the end to love.
There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral.
In the course of a debate with Lewis Terman: Without offering any data on all that occurs between conception and the age of kindergarten, they announce on the basis of what they have got out of a few thousand questionnaires that they are measuring the hereditary mental endowment of human beings. Obviously, this is not a conclusion obtained by research. It is a conclusion planted by the will to believe. It is, I think, for the most part unconsciously planted.... If the impression takes root that these tests really measure intelligence, that they constitute a sort of last judgment on the child's capacity, that they reveal 'scientifically' his predestined ability, then it would be a thousand times better if all the intelligence testers and all their questionnaires were sunk in the Sargasso Sea.
You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers.
When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.
You don't have to preach honesty to men with creative purpose. Let a human being throw the engines of his soul into the making of something, and the instinct of workmanship will take care of his honesty.
The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth.
Upon the standard to which the wise and honest will now repair it is written: You have lived the easy way; henceforth, you will live the hard way.... You came into a great heritage made by the insight and the sweat and the blood of inspired and devoted and courageous men; thoughtlessly and in utmost self-indulgence you have all but squandered this inheritance. Now only by the heroic virtues which made this inheritance, can you restore it again. You took the good things for granted. Now you must earn them again.... For every right that you cherish, you have a duty which you must fulfill. For every hope that you entertain, you have a task that you must perform. For every good that you wish to preserve, you will have to sacrifice your comfort and your ease. There is nothing for nothing any longer.
Love endures only when the lovers love many things together and not merely each other.
The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters.
The thinker dies, but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal; but ideas are immortal.
True opinions can prevail only if the facts to which they refer are known; if they are not known, false ideas are just as effective as true ones, if not a little more effective.
Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark.
In a democracy, the opposition is not only tolerated as constitutional, but must be maintained because it is indispensable.
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.
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
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