One difference between French appeasement and American appeasement is that France pays ransom in cash and gets its hostages back while the United States pays ransom in arms and gets additional hostages taken. — William Safire Copy Share Image
Decide on some imperfect Somebody and you will win, because the truest truism in politics is: You can't beat Somebody with Nobody. — William Safire Copy Share Image
Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight. — William Safire Copy Share Image
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… — William Safire Copy Share Image
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… — William Safire Copy Share Image
When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary. — William Safire Copy Share Image
A man who lies, thinking it is the truth, is an honest man, and a man who tells the truth, believing it to be… — William Safire Copy Share 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… — William Safire Copy Share Image
Today, war of necessity is used by critics of military action to describe unavoidable response to an attack like that on Pearl Harbor that… — William Safire Copy Share Image
To communicate, put your words in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. — William Safire Copy Share Image
“Chandler’s “She was blonde enough to make a bishop kick a hole through a stained-glass window” — William Safire Copy Share Image
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… — William Safire Copy Share Image
