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Color and bite permeate a language designed to rally many men, to destroy some, and to change the minds of others.

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
Minds
Color
Language
Permeate
Others
Rally
Change
Bite
Many
Bites
Mind
Designed
Men
Destroy

More quotes by William Safire

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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.
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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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A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.
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Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
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Have a definite opinion.
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The first ladyship is the only federal office in which the holder can neither be fired nor impeached.
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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.
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In dealing with Syria's dictator...only force counts. No cease-fire was attainable in Lebanon until the 16-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey started shelling Syria's proxies suddenly, sweet reason prevailed in Damascus.
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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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As long as one American is hungry... then we have unfinished business in this country.
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Never put the story in the lead. Let 'em have a hot shot of ambiguity right between the eyes.
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... 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.
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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 most fun in breaking a rule is in knowing what rule you're breaking.
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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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Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat.
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Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.
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Different regions may require different strategies, as President Bush has noted, but not different basic principles. It's either collective security or selective security.
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You don't want lopsided government. You don't want one side running roughshod over the other.
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At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
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