quote · Legacy record
The modern skeptical world has been taught for some 200 years a conception of human nature in which the reality of evil, so well-known to the age of faith, has been discounted. Almost all of us grew up in an environment of such easy optimism that we can scarcely know what is meant, though our ancestors knew it well, by the satanic will. We shall have to recover this forgotten but essential truth ‑ along with so many others that we lost when, thinking we were enlightened and advanced, we were merely shallow and blind.
The modern skeptical world has been taught for some 200 years a conception of human nature in which the reality of evil, so well-known to the age of faith, has been discounted. Almost all of us grew up in an environment of such easy optimism that we can scarcely know what is meant, though our ancestors knew it well, by the satanic will. We shall have to recover this forgotten but essential truth ‑ along with so many others that we lost when, thinking we were enlightened and advanced, we were merely shallow and blind.
Approximate author period: c. 1931 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Walter Lippmann
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- Approximate author period: c. 1931 AD · modern
Approximate author-period evidence for Walter Lippmann: life dates 1889 to 1974. Wikidata Q316568, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q316568 (accessed 2026-10-08).
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