“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that can be given a name.”

—  George Orwell , book 1984

Source: 1984

Last update Sept. 30, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but un…" by George Orwell?
George Orwell photo
George Orwell 473
English author and journalist 1903–1950

Related quotes

George Orwell photo

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

George Orwell book 1984

Variant: For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself.
Source: 1984

Eric Maisel photo

“Before you can make meaning, an odd kind of election process must occur. You must nominate yourself as the meaning-maker in your life and as the hero of your own story. Then you must consciously elect yourself to that position.”

Eric Maisel (1947) American writer

Source: The Atheist’s Way (2009), p. 65

Stephen Sondheim photo

“The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service.”

Stephen Sondheim (1930) American composer and lyricist

“You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price of disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist you must learn your craft—then you can add all the genius you like.”

Phyllis A. Whitney (1903–2008) American writer
Winston S. Churchill photo

“Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Cary Grant photo

“God is within you, and you can do and have anything you want. You must love yourself more. … and then … you can love your fellow man.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)
Context: Do not blame others for your own mistakes. … YOU are Mother Nature. You have the power within you to be thin or fat, as you desire. … God is within you, and you can do and have anything you want. You must love yourself more. … and then … you can love your fellow man.

Alice Munro photo

“Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if you do you must hang onto it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you.”

Alice Munro book Runaway

Source: Runaway (2004)
Context: This is what happens. You put it away for a little while, and now and again you look in the closet for something else and you remember, and you think, soon. Then it becomes something that is just there, in the closet, and other things get crowded in front of it and on top of it and finally you don't think about it at all.
The thing that was your bright treasure. You don't think about it. A loss you could not contemplate at one time, and now it becomes something you can barely remember.
This is what happens.
Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if you do you must hang onto it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you.

Francesca Lia Block photo

“If you want to find the trail, if you want to find yourself, you must explore your dreams alone. You must grow at a slow pace in a dark cocoon of loneliness so you can fly like wind, like wings, when you awaken.”

Francesca Lia Block book Dangerous Angels

Source: Dangerous Angels

Paul Gabriël photo

“Be something, be yourself; if not, ]then] throw your palette in the fire. Form a school if you wish, but it must come from the inside of you, but you yourself may not belong to any school.”

Paul Gabriël (1828–1903) painter (1828-1903)

translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch / citaat van Paul Gabriël, in Nederlands: Wees wat, weest U zelve, zoo niet gooi uw palet in ’t vuur. Vormt een school zoo ge wilt, maar het moet uit U komen, maar gij zelve mag tot geen school behooren.
In a letter of Gabriël, Brussel (14 Oct. 1879), to his student then Willem Bastiaan Tholen; in Gabriël, P.J.C, ed. Jeltes, H.F.W.; Gebroeders Binger, Amsterdam 1926; as cited in an excerpt of RKD Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/136
1860's + 1870's

Related topics