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)

    But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)