Football strategy does not originate in a scrimmage: it is useless to expect solutions in a political campaign.
Walter LippmannRead
Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Institutions often crumble not just from external threats, but from internal decay fostered by those who support them.
Walter Lippmann's quote highlights a profound observation about the vulnerability of institutions. It suggests that many governments and systems fail not merely because of external adversaries, but because they are undermined from within by their own allies. The idea is that friends can have a more damaging impact by corrupting and weakening the foundation of an institution, leading to its eventual downfall, which raises important questions about loyalty and responsibility within any establishment.
Themes
InstitutionsCorruptionFriendsEnemiesWeakness
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion on political ethics during a lecture on governance.
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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.
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