Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism. – Walter Lippmann
The first principle of a civilized state is that the power is legitimate only when it is under contract. – Walter Lippmann
In making the great experiment of governing people by consent rather than by coercion, it is not sufficient that the party in power should have a majority. It is just as necessary that the party in power should never outrage the minority. – Walter Lippmann
Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all the other virtues tired of the effort of willing they become fanatics about conservatism. – Walter Lippmann
What we call a democratic society might be defined for certain purposes as one in which the majority is always prepared to put down a revolutionary minority. – Walter Lippmann
The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief… that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart. – Walter Lippmann
It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf. – Walter Lippmann
In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs. – Walter Lippmann
Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much. – Walter Lippmann
There is no arguing with the pretenders to a divine knowledge and to a divine mission. They are possessed with the sin of pride, they have yielded to the perennial temptation. – Walter Lippmann
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. – Walter Lippmann
In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers, always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents. – Walter Lippmann
It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most. – Walter Lippmann
Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main ballpark. – Walter Lippmann
Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort it brings. – Walter Lippmann
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. – Walter Lippmann
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on. – Walter Lippmann
You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steam-roller will not plant flowers. – Walter Lippmann
The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which is at the heart of all popular religion, that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart. – Walter Lippmann
Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark. – Walter Lippmann
