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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
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
Ignorance
Speech
Care
Sloppiness
Apathy
Cynicism
Caused
Empathy
More quotes by William Safire
Never assume the obvious is true.
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.
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Decide on some imperfect Somebody and you will win, because the truest truism in politics is: You can't beat Somebody with Nobody.
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A reader ought to be able to hold it and become familiar with its organized contents and make it a mind's manageable companion.
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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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I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know.
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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.
William Safire
In lieu of those checks and balances central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that is now investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and jailer or executioner. In an Orwellian twist, Bush's order calls this Soviet-style abomination 'a full and fair trial.'
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Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.
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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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Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.
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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.
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Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.
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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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It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
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Create your own constituency of the infuriated.
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As long as one American is hungry... then we have unfinished business in this country.
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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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When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary.
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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
William Safire