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Using Clichés Is A Substitute For Thinking
-George Orwell
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Using Clichés Is A

George Orwell
...
Using Clichés Is A Substitute For Thinking

Understanding the Quote: "using clichés is a substitute for thinking..."

This quote by George Orwell reflects deeply on the theme of thinking. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Thinking, Substitutes, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how George Orwell interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About George Orwell

George Orwell is celebrated for insightful thoughts on thinking and substitutes. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Thinking
Substitutes
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Effectiveness
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The Major Problem Of Our Time Is The Decay In The Belief In Personal Immortality, And It Cannot Be Dealt With While The Average Human Being Is Either Drudging Like An Ox Or Shivering In Fear Of The Secret Police... How Right [the Working Classes] Are To Realize That The Belly Comes Before The Soul, Not In The Scale Of Values But In Point Of Time!
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In A Society In Which There Is No Law, And In Theory No Compulsion, The Only Arbiter Of Behaviour Is Public Opinion. But Public Opinion, Because Of The Tremendous Urge To Conformity In Gregarious Animals, Is Less Tolerant Than Any System Of Law. When Human Beings Are Governed By "thou Shalt Not", The Individual Can Practise A Certain Amount Of Eccentricity: When They Are Supposedly Governed By "love" Or "reason", He Is Under Continuous Pressure To Make Him Behave And Think In Exactly The Same Way As Everyone Else.
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Animal
Law
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Mass
Standards
In Philosophy, Or Religion, Or Ethics, Or Politics, Two And Two Might Make Five, But When One Was Designing A Gun Or An Aeroplane They Had To Make Four.
Philosophy
Gun
Two
Imperialism As He [kipling] Sees It Is A Sort Of Forcible Evangelising.
Imperialism
Kipling
The Creatures Outside Looked From Pig To Man, And From Man To Pig, And From Pig To Man Again; But Already It Was Impossible To Say Which Was Which.
Animal
Men
Pigs
The Whole Climate Of Thought Will Be Different. In Fact There Will Be No Thought, As We Understand It Now. Orthodoxy Means Not Thinking - Not Needing To Think. Orthodoxy Is Unconsciousness.
Mean
Thinking
Insightful
A Totalitarian State Is In Effect A Theocracy, And Its Ruling Caste, In Order To Keep Its Position, Has To Be Thought Of As Infallible. But Since, In Practice, No One Is Infallible, It Is Frequently Necessary To Rearrange Past Events In Order To Show That This Or That Mistake Was Not Made, Or That This Or That Imaginary Triumph Actually Happened.
Mistake
Past
Order
Don't You See That The Whole Aim Of Newspeak Is To Narrow The Range Of Thought? Has It Ever Occurred To You, Winston, That By The Year 2050, At The Very Latest, Not A Single Human Being Will Be Alive Who Could Understand Such A Conversation As We Are Having Now?
Mean
Thinking
Years
The Whole Idea Of Revenge And Punishment Is A Childish Day-dream. Properly Speaking, There Is No Such Thing As Revenge. Revenge Is An Act Which You Want To Commit When You Are Powerless And Because You Are Powerless: As Soon As The Sense Of Impotence Is Removed, The Desire Evaporates Also.
Dream
Revenge
Punishment
I Do Not Think One Can Assess A Writer's Motives Without Knowing Something Of His Early Development. His Subject Matter Will Be Determined By The Age He Lives In ... But Before He Ever Begins To Write He Will Have Acquired An Emotional Attitude From Which He Will Never Completely Escape.
Attitude
Writing
Emotional
The Tendency Of Advanced Capitalism Has Been To Enlarge The Middle Class And Not To Wipe It Out, As It Once Seemed Likely To Do.
Class
Wipe
Tendencies
Men Can Only Be Happy When They Do Not Assume That The Object Of Life Is Happiness.
Life
Happiness
Happy
The Past Was Erased, The Erasure Was Forgotten, The Lie Became The Truth.
Lying
Past
Forgotten
Modern English, Especially Written English, Is Full Of Bad Habits Which Spread By Imitation And Which Can Be Avoided If One Is Willing To Take The Necessary Trouble. If One Gets Rid Of These Habits One Can Think More Clearly, And To Think Clearly Is A Necessary First Step Toward Political Regeneration: So That The Fight Against Bad English Is Not Frivolous And Is Not The Exclusive Concern Of Professional [or Scholarly] Writers.
Fighting
Thinking
Political
The Paris Slums Are A Gathering-place For Eccentric People - People Who Have Fallen Into Solitary, Half-mad Grooves Of Life And Given Up Trying To Be Normal Or Decent. Poverty Frees Them From Ordinary Standards Of Behavior, Just As Money Frees People From Work.
Paris
People
Mad
And In The General Hardening Of Outlook That Set In ... Practices Which Had Been Long Abandoned ... -- Imprisonment Without Trial, The Use Of War Prisoners As Slaves, Public Executions, Torture To Extract Confessions, The Use Of Hostages And The Deportation Of Whole Populations -- Not Only Became Common Again, But Were Tolerated And Even Defended By People Who Considered Themselves Enlightened And Progressive.
War
Practice
Long
It Is Not Possible For Any Thinking Person To Live In Such A Society As Our Own Without Wanting To Change It.
Thinking
Persons
Thinking Person
Political Chaos Is Connected With The Decay Of Language... One Can Probably Bring About Some Improvement By Starting At The Verbal End.
Political Language
Decay
Chaos
To An Ordinary Human Being, Love Means Nothing If It Does Not Mean Loving Some People More Than Others.
Love
Heart
Mean
He Was A Lonely Ghost Uttering A Truth That Nobody Would Ever Hear.
Lonely
Ghost
Not To Expose Your True Feelings To An Adult Seems To Be Instinctive From The Age Of Seven Or Eight Onwards.
Birthday
Trust
Eight
Manchester Is The Belly And Guts Of The Nation
Guts
Belly
Manchester
Friend Of Fatherless! Fountain Of Happiness! Lord Of The Swill-bucket! Oh, How My Soul Is On Fire When I Gaze At Thy Calm And Commanding Eye. Like The Sun In The Sky, Comrade Napoleon! Thou Are The Giver Of All Thy Creatures Love, Full Belly Twice A Day, Clean Straw To Roll Upon; Every Beast Great Or Small, Sleeps At Peace In His Stall, Thou Watchest Over All, Comrade Napoleon! Had I A Sucking-pig, Ere He Had Grown As Big Even As A Pint Bottle Or A A Rolling-pin He Should Have Learned To Be Faithful And True To Thee, Yes, His First Squeak Should Be Comrade Napoleon!
Sleep
Eye
Fire
How Could You Make Appeal To The Future When Not A Trace Of You, Not Even An Anonymous Word Scribbled On A Piece Of Paper, Could Physically Survive?
Pieces
Paper
Appeals
For, After All, How Do We Know That Two And Two Make Four? Or That The Force Of Gravity Works? Or That The Past Is Unchangeable? If Both The Past And The External World Exist Only In The Mind, And If The Mind Itself Is Controllable – What Then?
Science
Past
Two
Prolonged, Indiscriminate Reviewing Of Books Is A Quite Exceptionally Thankless, Irritating And Exhausting Job. It Not Only Involves Praising Trash But Constantly Inventing Reactions Towards Books About Which One Has No Spontaneous Feeling Whatever.
Jobs
Book
Feelings
Never Use A Metaphor, Simile, Or Other Figure Of Speech Which You Are Used To Seeing In Print.
Speech
Use
Metaphor
From The Totalitarian Point Of View, History Is Something To Be Created Rather Than Learned.
Views
Point Of View
Oceania Was At War With Eurasia; Therefore Oceania Had Always Been At War With Eurasia.
War
Literature
Oceania
Orthodoxy Is The Ability To Say Two And Two Make Five When Faith Requires It.
Faith
Two
Orthodoxy
A Generation Of The Unteachable Is Hanging Upon Us Like A Necklace Of Corpses.
Generations
Necklaces
Corpses
The Paperweight Was The Room He Was In, And The Coral Was Julia's Life And His Own, Fixed In A Sort Of Eternity At The Heart Of The Crystal.
Heart
Rooms
Crystals
Reality Is Inside The Skull.
Reality
Skulls
And It Is A Great Thing To Die In Your Own Bed, Though It Is Better Still To Die In Your Boots.
Bed
Boots
Great Things
If One Harbours Anywhere In One's Mind A Nationalistic Loyalty Or Hatred, Certain Facts, Although In A Sense Known To Be True, Are Inadmissible.
Loyalty
Hatred
Patriotism
Under The Spreading Chestnut Tree I Sold You And You Sold Me--
Tree
Nineteen
Chestnuts
Anyone Who Knows Of A Provable Instance Of Colour Discrimination Ought Always To Expose It.
Discrimination
Colour
Instance
Happiness Can Only Exist In Acceptance.
Acceptance
The Result Of This Is That So-called Peace Propaganda Is Just As Dishonest And Intellectually Disgusting As War Propaganda. Like War Propaganda, It Concentrates On Putting Forward A ‘case’, Obscuring The Opponent’s Point Of View And Avoiding Awkward Questions.
War
Views
Opponents
But You Could Not Have Pure Love Or Pure Lust Nowadays. No Emotion Was Pure, Because Everything Was Mixed Up With Fear And Hatred. Their Embrace Had Been A Battle, The Climax A Victory. It Was A Blow Struck Against The Party. It Was A Political Act.
Party
Blow
Hatred
The Essence Of Being Human Is That One Does Not Seek Perfection.
Life
Wisdom
Believe
I Understand How. I Do Not Understand Why
The Point Is That We Are All Capable Of Believing Things Which We Know To Be Untrue, And Then, When We Are Finally Proved Wrong, Impudently Twisting The Facts So As To Show That We Were Right. Intellectually, It Is Possible To Carry On This Process For An Indefinite Time: The Only Check On It Is That Sooner Or Later A False Belief Bumps Up Against Solid Reality, Usually On A Battlefield.
Faith
Believe
Reality
Pessimism Is Reactionary Because It Makes The Very Idea Of Improving The World Impossible.
Ideas
World
Impossible
One Wants To Live, Of Course, Indeed One Only Stays Alive By Virtue Of The Fear Of Death.
Life And Death
Alive
Want
I Felt As If I Was The Only Person Awake In A City Of Sleepwalkers. That's An Illusion, Of Course. When You Walk Through A Crowd Of Strangers It's Next Door To Impossible Not To Imagine That They're All Waxworks, But Probably They're Thinking Just The Same About You.
Thinking
Doors
Cities
In The Nineteenth Century Some Parts Of The World Were Unexplored, But There Was Almost No Restriction On Travel.:; Up To 1914 You Did Not Need A Passport For Any Country Except Russia.:; The European Emigrant, If He Could Scrape Together A Few Pounds For The Passage, Simply Set Sail For America Or Australia, And When He Got There No Questions Were Asked.:; In The Eighteenth Century It Had Been Quite Normal And Safe To Travel In A Country With Which Your Own Country Was At War.
Country
War
America
The Artist Is To Be Exempt From The Moral Laws That Are Binding On Ordinary People. Just Pronounce The Magic Word "art," And Everything Is O.k. Rotting Corpses With Snails Crawling Over Them Are O.k.; Kicking Little Girls In The Head Is O.k.; Even A Film Like L'age D'or Is O.k.
Girl
Art
Law
How Right The Working Classes Are In Their "materialism." How Right They Are To Realize That The Belly Comes Before The Soul, Not In The Scale Of Values But In Point Of Time!
Wisdom
Class
Soul
England Is Perhaps The Only Great Country Whose Intellectuals Are Ashamed Of Their Own Nationality.
Country
England
Ashamed
The Object Of Terrorism Is Terrorism. The Object Of Oppression Is Oppression. The Object Of Torture Is Torture. The Object Of Murder Is Murder. The Object Of Power Is Power. Now Do You Begin To Understand Me?
Murder
Terrorism
Oppression
Sheer Egoism... Writers Share This Characteristic With Scientists, Artists, Politicians, Lawyers, Soldiers, Successful Businessmen - In Short, With The Whole Top Crust Of Humanity.
Writing
Successful
Artist
We Were Once Told That The Aeroplane Had "abolished Frontiers"; Actually It Is Only Since The Aeroplane Became A Serious Weapon That Frontiers Have Become Definitely Impassable.
Air Power
Weapons
Serious
If I Had Understood The Situation A Bit Better I Should Probably Have Joined The Anarchists.
Revolutionary
Anarchist
Should
The Fallacy Is To Believe That Under A Dictatorial Government You Can Be Free Inside
Believe
Government
Fallacy
Is Not Anyone With Any Degree Of Mental Honesty Conscious Of Telling Lies All Day Long, Both In Talking And Writing, Simply Because Lies Will Fall Into Artistic Shape When Truth Will Not?
Honesty
Lying
Fall
Where This Age Differs From Those Immediately Preceding It Is That A Liberal Intelligentsia Is Lacking. Bully-worship, Under Various Disguises, Has Become A Universal Religion, And Such Truisms As That A Machine-gun Is Still A Machine-gun Even When A "good" Man Is Squeezing The Trigger Have Turned Into Heresies Which It Is Actually Becoming Dangerous To Utter.
Gun
Men
Bully
We Are All Capable Of Believing Things Which We Know To Be Untrue, And Then, When We Are Finally Proved Wrong, Impudently Twisting The Facts So As To Show That We Were Right.
Believe
Facts
Shows
It [england] Is A Family In Which The Young Are Generally Thwarted And Most Of The Power Is In The Hands Of Irresponsible Uncles And Bedridden Aunts.
Uncles
Aunt
Hands
Winston Worked In The Records Department (a Single Branch Of The Ministry Of Truth) Editing And Writing For The Times. He Dictated Into A Machine Called A Speakwrite. Winston Would Receive Articles Or News-items Which For One Reason Or Another It Was Thought Necessary To Alter, Or, In Newspeak, Rectify. If, For Example, The Ministry Of Plenty Forecast A Surplus, And In Reality The Result Was Grossly Less, Winston's Job Was To Change Previous Versions So The Old Version Would Agree With The New One.
Jobs
Writing
Reality
Truth Becomes Untruth If Uttered By Your Enemy
Motivational
Enemy
Truth Is
Is The English Press Honest Or Dishonest? At Normal Times It Is Deeply Dishonest. All The Papers That Matter Live Off Their Advertisements, And The Advertisers Exercise An Indirect Censorship Over News. Yet I Do Not Suppose There Is One Paper In England That Can Be Straightforwardly Bribed With Hard Cash. In The France Of The Third Republic All But A Very Few Of The Newspapers Could Notoriously Be Bought Over The Counter Like So Many Pounds Of Cheese.
Exercise
Normal
Cheese
Beauty Is Meaningless Until It Is Shared.
Meaningless
The Essence Of Oligarchical Rule Is Not Father-to-son Inheritance, But The Persistence Of A Certain World-view And A Certain Way Of Life, Imposed By The Dead Upon The Living. A Ruling Group Is A Ruling Group So Long As It Can Nominate Its Successors. The Party Is Not Concerned With Perpetuating Its Blood But With Perpetuating Itself. Who Wields Power Is Not Important, Provided That The Hierarchical Structure Remains Always The Same.
Father
Son
Persistence
No Advance In Wealth, No Softening Of Manners, No Reform Or Revolution Has Ever Brought Human Equality A Millimeter Nearer.
Equality
Reform
Literature
It Was True That There Was No Such Person As Comrade Oglivy, But A Few Lines Of Print And A Couple Of Faked Photographs Would Soon Bring Him Into Existence... Comrade Oglivy, Who Had Never Existed In The Present, Now Existed In The Past, And When Once The Act Of Forgery Was Forgotten, He Would Exist Just As Authentically, And Upon The Same Evidence, As Charlemagne Or Julius Caesar.
Couple
Past
Lines
Political Language... Is Designed To Make Lies Sound Truthful And Murder Respectable, And To Give An Appearance Of Solidity To Pure Wind.
Witty
Peace
Truth
I Think I Exist,' He Said Wearily. 'i Am Conscious Of My Own Identity. I Was Born, And I Shall Die. I Have Arms And Legs. I Occupy A Particular Point In Space. No Other Solid Object Can Occupy The Same Point Simultaneously.
Thinking
Space
Identity
The Essential Point Here Is That All People With Small, Insecure Incomes Are In The Same Boat And Ought To Be Fighting On The Same Side. Probably We Could Do With A Little Less Talk About' Capitalist' And 'proletarian' And A Little More About The Robbers And The Robbed.
Fighting
Insecure
Economic Inequality
I Have Tipped Waiters, And I Have Been Tipped By Waiters.
Waiter
Has Beens
The War Is Not Meant To Be Won, It Is Meant To Be Continuous.
War
1984 Movie
East Asia
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