Language Control Quotes

As long as a word remains unspoken, you are its master; once you utter it, you are its slave.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.

I never call them 'guys;' I always call them 'boys.' Maybe it's a superiority complex - my needing to keep them down.

Government want to tell you things you can't say because they're against the law, or you can't say this because it's against a regulation, or here's something you can't say because its a... secret; "You can't tell him that because he's not cleared to know that." Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in.

Definitions belong to the definer, not the defined.

When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.

Self-control is one mark of a mature person; it applies to control of language, physical treatment of others, and the appetites of the body.

Twitter's designed to reduce the language, directly out of 1984! It's Ingsoc!

The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.

I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism . . . The only way to react is to get up in the morning and start the day by saying four or five vastly politically incorrect things before breakfast!

Words are the source of all power. And names are more than just a collection of letters.

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.

Women have had the power of naming stolen from us.

Language is neither reactionary nor progressive; it is quite simply fascist; for fascism does not prevent speech, it compels speech.

I am under the spell of language, which has ruled me since I was 10.

It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

People have tried to corner the market on being offended, corner the market on language and corner the market on opinion. Should I lose my job 'cause I offended somebody? No, of course not. Your life should never be affected by public opinion.

Poets... are literal-minded men who will squeeze a word till it hurts.

Mastery of language affords remarkable power.

The tongue should not be suffered to outrun the mind.

Political correctness is bad.

I can't recall any difficulty in making the C language definition completely open - any discussion on the matter tended to mention languages whose inventors tried to keep tight control, and consequent ill fate.