Football strategy does not originate in a scrimmage: it is useless to expect solutions in a political campaign.
Walter LippmannRead
There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that even the worst of actions can be justified under the guise of morality.
Walter Lippmann's quote points out the tendency of individuals and societies to rationalize unethical or harmful behavior by presenting it as morally justified. This reflects a critical view on human nature and the complexities of moral reasoning, suggesting that people may disguise their true intentions or actions with a veneer of morality to avoid criticism or to maintain a positive self-image.
In practice
This quote could be used in a debate about ethical dilemmas in political decision-making.
Football strategy does not originate in a scrimmage: it is useless to expect solutions in a political campaign.
The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.
The news and the truth are not the same thing.
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.
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.
To create a minimum standard of life below which no human being can fall is the most elementary duty of the democratic state.
You go to someone and you think, 'I'll tell him this.' But why? The impulse is that the telling is going to relieve you. And that's why you feel awful later--you've relieved yourself, and if it truly is tragic and awful, it's not better, it's worse---the exhibitionism inherent to a confession has only made the misery worse.
What if God were not exactly truth, and if this could be proved? And if he were instead the vanity, the desire for power, the ambitions, the fear, and the enraptured and terrified folly of mankind?
Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.
One of the quainter quirks of life is that we shall never know who dies on the dame day as we do ourselves.
I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.
I wanted my own words. But the ones I use have dragged through I don't know how many consciences.
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