Walter Lippmann World Quotations

We are all captives of the picture in our head - our belief that the world we have experienced is the world that really exists.

We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception.

What each man does is based not on direct and certain knowledge, but on pictures made by himself or given to him....The way in which the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do.

For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.

Whatever truth you contribute to the world will be one lucky shot in a thousand misses. You cannot be right by holding your breath and taking precautions.

There is but one bond of peace that is both permanent and enriching: The increasing knowledge of the world in which experiment occurs.