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Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.
William Safire
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William Safire
Age: 79 †
Born: 1929
Born: December 17
Died: 2009
Died: September 27
Author
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
William Lewis Safire
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Knowing
Civilized
Work
Appreciation
Things
Basis
Bases
Delight
Thus
Gratitude
More quotes by William Safire
The trick is to start early in our careers the stress-relieving avocation that we will need later as a mind-exercising final vocation. We can quit a job, but we quit fresh involvement at our mental peril.
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Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?
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Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when he was British Foreign Secretary, said he received the following telegram from an irate citizen: To hell with you. Offensive letter follows.
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We are all environmentalists now, but we are not all planetists. An environmentalist realizes that nature has its pleasures and deserves respect. A planetist puts the earth ahead of the earthlings.
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The wonderful thing about being a New York Times columnist is that it's like a Supreme Court appointment - they're stuck with you for a long time.
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The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads Scientia Est Potentia - knowledge is power. Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you.
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Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.
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At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
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A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.
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When your government, employer, landlord, merchant, banker and local sports team gang up to picture, digitize and permanently record your every activity, you are placed under unprecedented control.
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Create your own constituency of the infuriated.
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I'm a right-wing pundit and have been for many years.
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George Washington had a tough second term.
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I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know.
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Never look for the story in the 'lede.' Reporters are required to put what's happened up top, but the practiced pundit places a nugget of news, even a startling insight, halfway down the column, directed at the politiscenti. When pressed for time, the savvy reader starts there.
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Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.
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Give your main clause a little space. Prose is not like boxing the skilled writer deliberately telegraphs his punch, knowing that the reader wants to take the message directly on the chin.
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Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
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I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.
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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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