The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.
Walter LippmannRead
Football strategy does not originate in a scrimmage: it is useless to expect solutions in a political campaign.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Effective strategies for leadership and decision-making cannot be developed in chaotic or unstructured environments.
Walter Lippmann's quote suggests that formulating a successful strategy, much like in football, requires a well-defined structure and context. Just as teams cannot devise effective plays in the midst of a scrimmage, political campaigns also need thoughtful planning and a clear framework to achieve meaningful solutions amid the chaos of competing interests and pressures.
Themes
StrategyLeadershipPlanningPoliticsSolution
In practice
Example use cases
During a team meeting on project management, I used the quote to emphasize the importance of planning before execution.
More from Walter Lippmann
All quotes βThe news and the truth are not the same thing.
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There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral.
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The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it the representative of a whole class.
Walter LippmannRead
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 LippmannRead
To create a minimum standard of life below which no human being can fall is the most elementary duty of the democratic state.
Walter LippmannRead
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