George Orwell Quotes About Language

Quotes about: Language

• A man may take to drink because he feels himself to he a
  failure, and then fail all the more completely because he
  drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the
  English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because
  our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language
  makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

  George Orwell

  Men, Ugly, May

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.270, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

  George Orwell

  Inspirational, Life, Political Language

  "Politics and the English Language" (1946)

• Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

  George Orwell

  Witty, Peace, Truth

  "Politics and the English Language" (1946)

• To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.

  George Orwell

  Art, Latin, Struggle

• There is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language

  George Orwell

  Language, Corruption, Routes

• The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

  George Orwell

  Truth, Real, Political Language

  "Politics and the English Language" (1946)

• Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.

  George Orwell

  Children, Writing, Thinking

  George Orwell (1986). “The complete works of George Orwell”

• In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible... Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness... Political language [is] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.

  George Orwell

  Lying, Writing, Political Language

• If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.

  George Orwell

  People, Language, Tradition

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.282, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

  George Orwell

  Inspirational, Enemy, Language

  "All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays".

• Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.

  George Orwell

  Political, Nineteen, Impossible

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 5 (1949)

• The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.

  George Orwell

  Perfect, Liberty, Libertarian

  George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.44, Arcturus Publishing

• Some people have a knack, for example, of being able to tell when someone's lying to them. They may not know what the truth is, but they can tell when someone is trying to lead them astray or sell them something shady. I think he had that ability to an amazing degree. I also think he thought, without saying it explicitly, that you can convince a crowd of something that's not true more easily than you can one person at a time.

  George Orwell

  Lying, Book, Thinking

• The slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

  George Orwell

  Language, Foolish, Easier

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.270, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

  George Orwell

  Beautiful, Language, Absurd

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.151, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.

  George Orwell

  Lying, Latin, Real

  George Orwell, Peter Hobley Davison (2001). “Orwell and politics: Animal farm in the context of essays, reviews and letters selected from the complete works of George Orwell”, Penguin Modern Classics

• Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

  George Orwell

  Communication, Joints, Language

  George Orwell (1986). “The complete works of George Orwell”

• Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

  George Orwell

  Political Language, Decay, Chaos

  George Orwell (1986). “The complete works of George Orwell”

• 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

  Latin, Fall, Political Language

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.282, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'that the whole history of English poetry has been de-termined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?

  George Orwell

  Facts, Language, Said

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.324, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it.

  George Orwell

  People, Matter, Way

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.270, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.

  George Orwell

  Party, Writing, Squares

  George Orwell (2001). “Orwell and Politics”, p.459, Penguin UK

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