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 could be given a name.

More from George Orwell

• At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.
• Four legs good, two legs bad.
• Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.
• If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.
• Inequality was the price of civilization.
• It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.