William Safire Quotes

• Never assume the obvious is true.

  William Safire

  Topics in Truth

  Tags in Never

• I was egregiously wrong.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

• President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• A man who lies, thinking it is the truth, is an honest man, and a man who tells the truth, believing it to be a lie, is a liar.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Cover your ass-the bureaucrat’s method of protecting his posterior from posterity.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Color and bite permeate a language designed to rally many men, to destroy some, and to change the minds of others.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• The new, old, and constantly changing language of politics is a lexicon of conflict and drama…ridicule and reproach…pleading and persuasion.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• When infuriated by an outrageous column, do not be suckered into responding with an abusive e-mail. Pundits so targeted thumb through these red-faced electronic missives with delight, saying ‘Hah! Got to ’em.’

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• I’m willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Libertarian, Willing

• What do you call a co-worker these days? Neither teammate nor confederate will do, and partner is too legalistic. The answer brought from academia to the political world by Henry Kissinger and now bandied in the boardroom is colleague. It has a nice upper-egalitarian feel, related to the good fellowship of collegial.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• 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.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Directed, Startling

• 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.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Accessible, Especially

• Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Syllables, Light

• Today, war of necessity is used by critics of military action to describe unavoidable response to an attack like that on Pearl Harbor that led to our prompt, official declaration of war, while they characterize as unwise wars of choice the wars in Korea, Vietnam and the current war in Iraq.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Poetic, Unfamiliar

• Stop worrying about the ‘dumbing down’ of our language by bloggers, tweeters, cableheads and MSM thumbsuckers engaged in a ‘race to the bottom’ of the page by little minds confined to little words.

  William Safire

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Confined, Worrying

William Safire (37)

Birth:	17th December, 1929
Death:	27th September, 2009
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Author, Columnist, Journalist

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Today's Anniversary - 22nd December

Births

• 1861 - Sara Jeannette Duncan
• 1831 - Mark Rutherford
• 1905 - Kenneth Rexroth
• 1962 - Mark Ruffalo
• 1952 - Robert McChesney

Deaths

• 1987 - Sir Henry Thomas Cotton
• 1906 - Robert Rainy
• 1899 - Dwight L. Moody
• 2001 - Lance Loud
• 1943 - Beatrix Potter