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

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A reader should be able to identify a column without its byline or funny little picture on top purely by look or feel, or its turgidity ratio.
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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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Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
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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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Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.
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I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.
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When duty calls, that is when character counts.
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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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Some handsome and ambitious men believe they are above all morality, and a woman's virtue becomes a mere challenge to them.
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As long as one American is hungry... then we have unfinished business in this country.
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Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.
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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 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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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 '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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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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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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The trick is to start early in our careers the stress-relieving avocation that we will need later as a mind-exercising final vocation. We can quit a job, but we quit fresh involvement at our mental peril.
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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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