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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.

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
Different
Opinions
Make
Remarkable
Whose
News
Crystallized
Opinion
Legion
Individual
Colorful
History
Collectives
Enough
Collective

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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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Adjective salad is delicious, with each element contributing its individual and unique flavor but a puree of adjective soup tastes yecchy.
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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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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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It is in the nature of tyranny to deride the will of the people as the voice of the mob, and to denounce the cry for freedom as the roar of anarchy.
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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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Never look for the story in the 'lede.' Reporters are required to put what's happened up top, but the practiced pundit places a nugget of news, even a startling insight, halfway down the column, directed at the politiscenti. When pressed for time, the savvy reader starts there.
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Avoid overuse of 'quotation “marks.”'
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Don't expect others to do your work for you.
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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.
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On the analogy of 'Dictionary Johnson,' we call Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the just-published Yale Book of Quotations (well worth the $50 price), 'Quotationeer Shapiro.' Shapiro does original research, earning his 1,067-page volume a place on the quotation shelf next to Bartlett's and Oxford's.
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No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.
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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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Sometimes I know the meaning of a word but am tired of it and feel the need for an unfamiliar, especially precise or poetic term, perhaps one with a nuance that flatters my readership's exquisite sensitivity.
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At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
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The CEO era gave rise to the CFO (not certified flying object, as you might imagine, but chief financial officer) and, most recently, the CIO, chief investment officer, a nice boost for the bookkeeper you can't afford to give a raise . . .
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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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A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.
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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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English is a stretch language one size fits all.
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