"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
— George Orwell
Political Language Is Designed To Make
Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
About this quote
This line comes from Orwell's celebrated 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language," one of the most influential pieces of literary criticism in English. Orwell argued that vague, pretentious prose is not merely a stylistic failure but a moral one — that deliberately murky language enables politicians to defend the indefensible without appearing to do so. He offered six rules for clear writing at the essay's close, and the piece remains required reading in journalism and composition courses worldwide.
Source
Politics and the English Language, essay (1946)