Weasel Words

Famous quotes containing the words weasel words, weasel and/or words:

    “One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called “weasel words.” When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a “weasel word” after another there is nothing left of the other.”
    —Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

    “This whole day have I followed in the rocks,
    And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape,
    First as a raven on whose ancient wings
    Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed
    A weasel moving on from stone to stone....”
    —William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    “I wonder whether mankind could not get along without all these names, which keep increasing every day, and hour, and moment; till at the last the very air will be full of them; and even in a great plain, men will be breathing each other’s breath, owing to the vast multitude of words they use, that consume all the air, just as lamp-burners do gas.”
    —Herman Melville (1819–1891)