Quote

The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

George Orwell

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

George Orwell
Age: 46 †
Born: 1903
Born: June 25
Died: 1950
Died: January 21
Autobiographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Poet
Screenwriter
War Correspondent
Writer
Eric Blair
P. S. Burton
Eric Arthur Blair
John Freeman
Kind
Enemy
Covering
Like
Clear
Latin
Upon
Falls
Blurring
Words
Soft
Language
Snow
Inflated
Fall
Details
Insincerity
Facts
Mass
Euphemism
Great
Style
Outlines

More quotes by George Orwell

Image
A sahib has got to act like a sahib he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things.
George Orwell
Image
The Penguin books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them.
George Orwell
Image
they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.
George Orwell
Image
We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now.
George Orwell
Image
As a rule they will refuse even to sample a foreign dish, they regard such things as garlic and olive oil with disgust, life is unliveable to them unless they have tea and puddings.
George Orwell
Image
The urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever.
George Orwell
Image
Freedom is the right to tell others what they don't want to hear.
George Orwell
Image
Never have ideas about children, and never have ideas for them.
George Orwell
Image
Even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold.
George Orwell
Image
A plongeur is a slave, and a wasted slave, doing stupid and largely unnecessary work. He is kept at work, ultimately, because of a vague feeling that he would be dangerous if he had leisure. And educated people, who should be on his side, acquiesce in the process, because they know nothing about him and consequently are afraid of him.
George Orwell
Image
At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.
George Orwell
Image
All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.
George Orwell
Image
A thing which I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time, is that I have never in my life planted a walnut. Nobody does plant them nowadays-when you see a walnut it is almost invariably an old tree. If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren?
George Orwell
Image
The plant is blind but it knows enough to keep pushing upwards towards the light, and it will continue to do this in the face of endless discouragements.
George Orwell
Image
Winston could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been at war...war had literally been continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil.
George Orwell
Image
You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one.
George Orwell
Image
But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet --!
George Orwell
Image
I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech - the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don't convince me and that our civilization over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice.
George Orwell
Image
For a second, two seconds, they had exchanged an equivocal glance, and that was the end of the story. But even that was a memorable event, in the locked loneliness in which one had to live.
George Orwell
Image
In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.
George Orwell