Walter Lippmann Quotes About Liberty

Quotes about: Liberty

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

  Walter Lippmann

  Lying, Mean, Community

• The Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively.

  Walter Lippmann

  Men, Rights, People

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.130, Harvard University Press

• 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".

• 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

  Men, Justice, Liberty

  Walter Lippmann (1938). “The good society”, p.267, Transaction Publishers

• Successful ... 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.

  Walter Lippmann

  Insecure, Successful, Men

  1955 The Public Philosophy, ch.2, sect.4.

• The unexamined life, said Socrates, is unfit to be lived by man. This is the virtue of liberty, and the ground on which we may justify our belief in it, that it tolerates error in order to serve truth.

  Walter Lippmann

  Men, Errors, Order

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.233, Harvard University Press

• Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark.

  Walter Lippmann

  Freedom, Liberty, Libertarian

  Walter Lippmann (1934). “The method of freedom”

• Whereas each man claims his freedom as a matter of right, the freedom he accords to other men is a matter of toleration.

  Walter Lippmann

  Men, Tolerance, Liberty

• A useful definition of liberty is obtained only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main business of human life, that is to say, in the process by which men educate their responses and learn to control their environment.

  Walter Lippmann

  Freedom, Men, Liberty

  Walter Lippmann (1995). “Liberty and the News”, p.61, Transaction Publishers

• Liberty without discipline cannot survive. Without order and 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 the elementary truths of human existence. They forgot that their freedom was achieved by heroic sacrifice.

  Walter Lippmann

  Life, Clever, Sacrifice

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

• It has been the fashion to speak of the conflict between human rights and property rights, and from this it has come to be widely believed that the use of private property is tainted with evil and should not be espoused by rational and civilized men... the only dependable foundation of personal liberty is the personal economic security of private property. The Good Society.

  Walter Lippmann

  Wisdom, Fashion, Men

• Liberty may be an uncomfortable blessing unless you know what to do with it. That is why so many freed slaves returned to their masters, why so many emancipated women are only too glad to give up the racket and settle down. For between announcing that you will live your own life, and the living of it lie the real difficulties of any awakening.

  Walter Lippmann

  Giving Up, Real, Lying

  Walter Lippmann, Julien C. Sprott (2015). “Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest”, p.123, University of Wisconsin Pres

• Free institutions are not the property of any majority. They do not confer upon majorities unlimited powers. The rights of the majority are limited rights. They are limited not only by the constitutional guarantees but by the moral principle implied in those guarantees. That principle is that men may not use the facilities of liberty to impair them. No man may invoke a right in order to destroy it.

  Walter Lippmann

  Men, Rights, Order

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.57, Harvard University Press

• For in the absence of debate unrestricted utterance leads to the degradation of opinion. By a kind of Greshams law the more rational is overcome by the less rational, and the opinions that will prevail will be those which are held most ardently by those with the most passionate will. For that reason the freedom to speak can never be maintained merely by objecting to interference with the liberty of the press, of printing, of broadcasting, of the screen. It can be maintained only by promoting debate.

  Walter Lippmann

  Law, Liberty, Overcoming

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.196, Harvard University Press

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