Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Sports
Locals
Employer
Government
Local
Permanently
Every
Picture
Merchants
Record
Unprecedented
Activity
Bankers
Records
Employers
Banker
Control
Gang
Merchant
Team
Placed
Landlord

More quotes by William Safire

Image
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.
William Safire
Image
Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?
William Safire
Image
You don't want lopsided government. You don't want one side running roughshod over the other.
William Safire
Image
If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.
William Safire
Image
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.
William Safire
Image
Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.
William Safire
Image
Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. And don't start a sentence with a conjugation.
William Safire
Image
What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.
William Safire
Image
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.
William Safire
Image
Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.
William Safire
Image
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.
William Safire
Image
... 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.
William Safire
Image
A reader ought to be able to hold it and become familiar with its organized contents and make it a mind's manageable companion.
William Safire
Image
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.
William Safire
Image
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.
William Safire
Image
I could get a better education interviewing John Steinbeck than talking to an English professor about novels.
William Safire
Image
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.
William Safire
Image
At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
William Safire
Image
Carter is the best President the Soviet Union ever had.
William Safire
Image
Have a definite opinion.
William Safire