A Quote by Walter Lippmann on achievement, authority, cleverness, cynicism, destruction, duty, freedom, heroism, indifference, liberty, life, men, order, preparation, sacrifice, spirit, thought, tragedy, weakness, world, and elightenment

Without order or authority in the spirit of man the free way of life leads through weakness, disorganization, self-indulgence, and moral indifference to the destruction of freedom itself. The tragic ordeal through which the Western world is passing was prepared in the long period of easy liberty, during which men . . . forgot that their freedom was achieved by heroic sacrifice. . . . They forgot that their rights were founded on their duties. . . . They thought it clever to be cynical, enlightened to be unbelieving, and sensible to be soft.