“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. (...) ? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to
recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language,
and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal
end.”