Walter Lippmann

The smashing of idols is in itself such a preoccupation that it is almost impossible for the iconoclast to look read more

The smashing of idols is in itself such a preoccupation that it is almost impossible for the iconoclast to look clearly into a future when there will not be many idols left to smash.

The disesteem into which moralists have fallen is due at bottom to their failure to see that in an age read more

The disesteem into which moralists have fallen is due at bottom to their failure to see that in an age like this one the function of the moralist is not to exhort men to be good but to elucidate what the good is. The problem of sanctions is secondary.

He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to read more

He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.

No serious historian of politics would imagine that he had accounted for the protective tariff of the system of bounties read more

No serious historian of politics would imagine that he had accounted for the protective tariff of the system of bounties or subsidies, for the monetary and banking laws, for the state of law in regard to corporate privileges and immunities, for the actual status of property rights, for agricultural or for labor policies, until he had gone behind the general claims and the abstract justifications and had identified the specifically interested groups which promoted the specific law.

At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and read more

At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history. To human nature (of the sort conceived), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply.