Quote

Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.

William Safire

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Strategy
Value
Cause
Higher
Leader
Causes
Values

More quotes by William Safire

Image
A reader ought to be able to hold it and become familiar with its organized contents and make it a mind's manageable companion.
William Safire
Image
At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
William Safire
Image
The tension between the governed and the governing is what makes the world go 'round. It's not love, it's that tension, because that tension exists in love affairs. The whole idea of control is at the heart of human relationships. Control and resistance to control.
William Safire
Image
Some handsome and ambitious men believe they are above all morality, and a woman's virtue becomes a mere challenge to them.
William Safire
Image
Color and bite permeate a language designed to rally many men, to destroy some, and to change the minds of others.
William Safire
Image
Do not be taken in by 'insiderisms.' Fledgling columnists, eager to impress readers with their grasp of journalistic jargon, are drawn to such arcane spellings as 'lede.' Where they lede, do not follow.
William Safire
Image
... it's Bush's baby, even if he shares its popularization with Gorbachev. Forget the Hitler 'new order' root F.D.R. used the phrase earlier.
William Safire
Image
To 'know your place' is a good idea in politics. That is not to say 'stay in your place' or 'hang on to your place', because ambition or boredom may dictate upward or downward mobility, but a sense of place - a feel for one's own position in the control room-is useful in gauging what you should try to do.
William Safire
Image
Adjective salad is delicious, with each element contributing its individual and unique flavor but a puree of adjective soup tastes yecchy.
William Safire
Image
If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.
William Safire
Image
The first ladyship is the only federal office in which the holder can neither be fired nor impeached.
William Safire
Image
The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
William Safire
Image
Decide on some imperfect Somebody and you will win, because the truest truism in politics is: You can't beat Somebody with Nobody.
William Safire
Image
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.
William Safire
Image
English is a stretch language one size fits all.
William Safire
Image
Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.
William Safire
Image
After eating, an epicure gives a thin smile of satisfaction a gastronome, burping into his napkin, praises the food in a magazine a gourmet, repressing his burp, criticizes the food in the same magazine a gourmand belches happily and tells everybody where he ate a glutton empraces the white porcelain alter, or more plainly, he barfs.
William Safire
Image
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.
William Safire
Image
Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
William Safire
Image
A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.
William Safire