Walter Lippmann Quotes About Democracy

Quotes about: Democracy

• Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular -- not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.

  Walter Lippmann

  Successful, Insecure, Men

  "Essays in the Public Philosophy". Book by Walter Lippmann, 1955.

• And the principle which distinguishes democracy from all other forms of government is that in a democracy the opposition not only is tolerated as constitutional but must be maintained because it is in fact indispensable.

  Walter Lippmann

  Government, Democracy, Liberty

  "The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy".

• Democracy is much too important to be left to public opinion.

  Walter Lippmann

  Democracy, Important, Public Opinion

• The present crisis of Western democracy is a crisis in journalism.

  Walter Lippmann

  Democracy, Journalism, Crisis

  1920 Liberty and the News,'Journalism and the Higher Law'.

• No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.

  Walter Lippmann

  Education, Hair, People

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.385, Harvard University Press

• Unless democracy is to commit suicide by consenting to its own destruction, it will have to find some formidable answer to those who come to it saying: I demand from you in the name of your principles the rights which I shall deny to you later in the name of my principles.

  Walter Lippmann

  Suicide, Rights, Names

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.59, Harvard University Press

• The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.

  Walter Lippmann

  War, Army, Blood

  Walter Lippmann (2003). “Men of Destiny (Ppr)”, p.58, Transaction Publishers

• For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day.

  Walter Lippmann

  Book, People, Democracy

  Liberty and the News ch. 2 (1920)

• We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilisations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern.

  Walter Lippmann

  Freedom, People, Support

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.107, Harvard University Press

• This is one of the paradoxes of the democratic movement - that it loves a crowd and fears the individuals who compose it - that the religion of humanity should have no faith in human beings.

  Walter Lippmann

  Freedom, Should Have, Humanity

• What the public does is not to express its opinions but to align itself for or against a proposal. If that theory is accepted, we must abandon the notion that democratic government can be the direct expression of the will of the people. We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilizations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern. We must say that the popular will does not direct continuously but that it intervenes occasionally.

  Walter Lippmann

  Government, Expression, People

  "The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy".

• The news of the days it reaches the newspaper office is an incredible medley of fact, propaganda, rumor, suspicion, clues, hopes, and fears, and the task of selecting and ordering that news is one of the truly sacred and priestly offices in a democracy. For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct.

  Walter Lippmann

  Book, People, Office

  1920 Liberty and the News,'What Modern Liberty Means'.

• The modern world is reversing the old virtues of authority. They aimed deliberately to make men unworldly. They did not aim to found society on a full use of the earth's resources; they did not aim to use the whole nature of man; they did not intend him to think out the full expression of his desires. Democracy is a turning point upon those ideals in a pursuit, at first unconsciously, of the richest life that men can devise for themselves.

  Walter Lippmann

  Men, Thinking, Expression

• A democracy which fails to concentrate authority in an emergency inevitably falls into such confusion that the ground is prepared for the rise of a dictator.

  Walter Lippmann

  Fall, Confusion, Democracy

  Walter Lippmann (1936). “Authority in the crisis”

• The consent of the governed" is more than a safeguard against ignorant tyrants: it is an insurance against benevolent despots as well.

  Walter Lippmann

  Tyrants, Ignorant, Democracy

  Walter Lippmann (1914). “A Preface to Politics”

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