Did George Orwell Say: III
Did George Orwell say ‘If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them’?
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No: this is not an Orwell quote. Wikiquote dates this to as recently as 1977.
George Orwell did write ‘… if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought’ in his seminal essay ‘Politics and the English Language’ (1946) but Orwell recommended thinking of concrete objects and then finding the words that fit the idea:
‘What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about… Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meanings as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose – not simply accept – the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impression one’s words are likely to make on another person.’
We provide a hyperlink to Orwell’s essay, hosted online by the Orwell Prize, to allow readers to follow his complete work.
While Orwell’s views on language are clear, this, so called quotation, is close to Edward de Bono’s work on encouraging clear thought.
Why is this quote attributed to Orwell? Do we know instead who said it?
Possibly “John H. Bunzel, president of San Jose State University”. See the link to Wikiquotes, where this is described in the ‘Disputed’ section.