Sunday Quotations: July 17, 2011
My fondness for George Orwell began in high school when I read 1984 for the first time. I enjoyed the novel so much that I decided to write my capstone AP English paper on it and its author. It was through researching that paper that I discovered Orwell was primarily an essayist, and Politics and the English Language quickly become a favorite.
“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?”
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
— George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946)
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