Football strategy does not originate in a scrimmage: it is useless to expect solutions in a political campaign.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote criticizes how public opinion is often manipulated for partisan interests, undermining individual intelligence.
Walter Lippmann's quote emphasizes the manipulation of public opinion by partisan groups, suggesting that when individuals are urged to lend their opinions, it reflects more on the exploitative tactics of these groups rather than the individuals' capacity for independent thought. The suggestion is that such appeals disrespect a person's intelligence and integrity by not acknowledging their ability to think critically and rely on evidence.
Themes
Public OpinionManipulationIntelligencePartisanEvidence
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of critical thinking in today's media landscape.
More from Walter Lippmann
All quotes →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
The news and the truth are not the same thing.
Walter LippmannRead
There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral.
Walter LippmannRead
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
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
Similar quotes
On this ancient and miraculous world, where such beautiful natural and living things have evolved, something has gone wrong when life itself is used as a manufacturing process.
Roger EbertRead
Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenseless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will perform them.
Lysander SpoonerRead
The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion.
Samuel JohnsonRead
The supreme end is the freedom of the spirit.
Sri AurobindoRead
Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their littleness, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.
Honore De BalzacRead
If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover these precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read