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

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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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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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To communicate, put your words in order give them a purpose use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.
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Give your main clause a little space. Prose is not like boxing the skilled writer deliberately telegraphs his punch, knowing that the reader wants to take the message directly on the chin.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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Cast aside any column about two subjects. It means the pundit chickened out on the hard decision about what to write about that day.
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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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Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.
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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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At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
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One challenge to the arts in America is the need to make the arts, especially the classic masterpieces, accessible and relevant to today's audience.
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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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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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Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.
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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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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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You don't overturn a previous court's decisions lightly and I think most Americans are somewhere in the middle on abortion and there's not going to be a revolution here at all.
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