Walter Lippmann Quotes

All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

Democracy is much too important to be left to public opinion.

The throne we honour is the people's choice.

The will of the people shall be the law of the land

I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty.

Let the people decide whom to vote for, who has more authority. And only people, only our citizens, are able to place the final emphasis, voting for this or that person or political force, or rejecting it. That's democracy.

Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable.

Democracy is constructed like an edifice, freedom by freedom, right by right, until it reaches its snapping point.

A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.

We make a great mistake in supposing all people are capable of self-government.

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.

Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

The Congress is not a court of law but it is a court of public opinion.

The deputies of the people should not and cannot be the people's representatives, they can only be its servants.... The moment that people give power to their representatives, they abdicate their liberty.

The people are the masters.

In a democracy, as a matter of course, every effort is made to seize upon and create publick opinion, which is, substantially, securing power.

If the people be governors, who shall be governed?

In an autocracy, one person has his way; in an aristocracy a few people have their way; in a democracy no one has his way.

Are the governors such exceptionally gifted men as to enable them … to represent the masses and act in the interests of all men better than all men would be able to act for themselves?

The great advantage of representatives is their capacity of discussing public affairs. For this, the people collectively are extremely unfit, which is one of the chief inconveniences of a democracy.

The consent of the governed" is more than a safeguard against ignorant tyrants: it is an insurance against benevolent despots as well.

Democracy is not majority rule but rule by public opinion.

The parliamentary regime leaves everything to the decision of majorities,--how can the large majorities beyond parliament be expected not to wish to decide? If, from above, they hear the fiddle screeching, what else is to be expected than that those below should dance?

A democratic state must feel before it can see; that is what makes it slow to act. But the people, at last, will be right.