The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want.
Walter LippmannThe opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opposition than from his fervent supporters.
Walter LippmannModern men are afraid of the past. It is a record of human achievement, but its other face is human defeat.
Walter LippmannInevitably our opinions cover a bigger space, a longer reach of time, a greater number of things, than we can directly observe. They have, therefore, to be pieced together out of what others have reported and what we can imagine.
Walter LippmannBefore you can begin to think about politics at all, you have to abandon the notion that there is a war between good men and bad men.
Walter Lippmann