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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.

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
Thinking
Believing
Tells
Lies
Honest
Lying
Truth
Believe
Liar
Men
Liars

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Gridlock is great. My motto is, 'Don't just do something. Stand there.'
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No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.
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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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President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.
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Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.
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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
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George Washington had a tough second term.
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Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.
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The perfect Christmas gift for a sportscaster, as all fans of sports clichés know, is a scoreless tie.
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The most fun in breaking a rule is in knowing what rule you're breaking.
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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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This is what it's all about. From what I could see, you could get a bunch of people together, whip up the press and have some impact.
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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.
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The Republicans do not look on the Democrats as the evil empire.
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The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
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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.
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Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.
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