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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.
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
Every
Picture
Merchants
Record
Unprecedented
Activity
Bankers
Records
Employers
Banker
Control
Gang
Merchant
Team
Placed
Landlord
Sports
Locals
Employer
Government
Local
Permanently
More quotes by William Safire
Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.
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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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Don't expect others to do your work for you.
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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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Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.
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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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To be accused of 'channeling' is to be dismissed as a ventriloquist's live dummy, derogated at not having a mind of one's own.
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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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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
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Gridlock is great. My motto is, 'Don't just do something. Stand there.'
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The Republicans do not look on the Democrats as the evil empire.
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By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
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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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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 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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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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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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... 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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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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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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