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The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
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
Right
Libertarian
Mean
Ethics
Something
Honesty
Integrity
Honor
Liberty
Doe
Character
Accountability
More quotes by William Safire
I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.
William Safire
I want my questions answered by an alert and experienced politician, prepared to be grilled and quoted -- not my hand held by an old smoothie.
William Safire
Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?
William Safire
Some handsome and ambitious men believe they are above all morality, and a woman's virtue becomes a mere challenge to them.
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[Senators John Kerry & John Edwards] have risen high in Democratic polls with a brand of class resentment and soak-the-rich rhetoric rooted in the old-fashioned liberalism of Ted Kennedy.
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The first ladyship is the only federal office in which the holder can neither be fired nor impeached.
William Safire
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
It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
William Safire
A man who lies, thinking it is the truth, is an honest man, and a man who tells the truth, believing it to be a lie, is a liar.
William Safire
A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.
William Safire
The remarkable legion of the unremarked, whose individual opinions are not colorful or different enough to make news, but whose collective opinion, when crystallized, can make history.
William Safire
If you re-read your work, you can find on re-reading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by re-reading and editing.
William Safire
Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
William Safire
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
To be accused of 'channeling' is to be dismissed as a ventriloquist's live dummy, derogated at not having a mind of one's own.
William Safire
I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know.
William Safire
No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.
William Safire
To communicate, put your words in order give them a purpose use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.
William Safire
Create your own constituency of the infuriated.
William Safire
By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
William Safire