Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
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.
Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
George Orwell, (attributed)
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