Claim:
British author George Orwell once said: "At 50, everyone has the face he deserves."
Rating:
Correct Attribution ( About this rating? )
For years, social media users on X , Facebook , Instagram , and other platforms have claimed George Orwell, the British author best known for his novels "1984" and "Animal Farm," once said: "At 50, everyone has the face he deserves."
The alleged quote has also appeared on numerous quote-meme websites , as well as in multiple print anthologies of quotes .
(X user @holdengraber)
Like other historical figures, such as Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, Orwell has been a magnet for falsely attributed quotes, some of which Snopes has debunked before.
In this case, however, the quote was genuine and correctly attributed to the British author.
Searching for the quotation using the Internet Archive's full-text search function produced nearly 300 results . One of these was "In Front of Your Nose: 1945–1950," the fourth volume of the "Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell," which first published in 1968 and was co-edited by Sonia Orwell — his wife — and Ian Angus.
The quote in question appeared on page 515 of that book, in a section titled "Extracts from a Manuscript Note-book." It is surrounded by a red box in the image below. The entry containing the quote was dated April 17, 1949.
(Internet Archive/"Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell")
In an introductory note to that section, the editors of the volume wrote:
During the last year of his life Orwell kept a manuscript note-book in which he made notes for a long short story, "A Smoking Room Story," and for essays on Joseph Conrad and Evelyn Waugh. He also used it for occasional jottings from which the following selection is taken.
Snopes tracked down a digitized version of the aforementioned notebook that was hosted online as part of University College London's George Orwell Archive .
The quotation in question appeared in Orwell's handwriting on page 30 of the digitized version, at the bottom of the left page (highlighted in the red box).
(George Orwell, "Literary Notebook [1949]")
Although the quote itself was genuine, one piece of misinformation sometimes circulates alongside it. Namely, some social media users incorrectly claim it represented Orwell's last written words .
(Facebook account QI - Quite Interesting)
The same claim has also appeared in traditional publications , including a 2010 anthology titled "Last Words of Notable People," which identified the quote as Orwell's "last words (written)." That anthology cited another book, Ralph Keyes' 2006 "The Quote Verifier," which described the quote as "the last words Orwell wrote in his notebook."
However, by reading through the digitized version of Orwell's original notebook, which continued for several pages after the quote in question appeared, Snopes found this was not the last thing Orwell ever wrote.
The latest specific date we found in that notebook was Dec. 16, 1949, around eight months after Orwell jotted down the quotation investigated here, and one month before he died on Jan. 21, 1950, at the age of 46. The Dec. 16, 1949, date appeared on the left side of page 31 of the digitized notebook, in the form "16-12-49" (in British English, the day is placed before the month).
In other words, "At 50, everyone has the face he deserves" was not the final sentence Orwell wrote before his death, despite occasional claims that it was. Instead, it was simply the final excerpt from his notebooks to be included in the fourth volume of the "Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell."
Regardless, the presence of the quote in Orwell's own handwriting within one of his notebooks was sufficient evidence to confirm the quote's attribution. Therefore, Snopes rated the claim that Orwell once said, "at 50, everyone has the face he deserves" as a "Correct Attribution."
Sources:
Belmonte, Adriana. "9 of the Most Chilling Last Words in History." Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/chilling-last-words-history-2018-6 . Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.
---. "9 of the Most Chilling Last Words in History." Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/chilling-last-words-history-2018-6 . Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.
Ibrahim, Nur. "Did Orwell Really Write This About Corrupt Politicians and Voters?" Snopes, 30 Nov. 2020, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/george-orwell-people-accomplices/ .
Maguire, Jack. Everyday Quotations : Just the Right Words for Life's Memorable Occasions. Garden City, N.Y. : GuildAmerica Books, 1998. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/everydayquotatio00magu .
Malone, Aubrey. Quotable Quotes for Quoters. Tadworth : Clarion, 2005. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/quotablequotesfo0000malo .
Orwell, George. "Literary Notebook [1949]." UCL Library Services, https://ucl.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/delivery/44UCL_INST:UCL_VU2/12414871860004761#page=30&zoom=150,-4,563 .
---. The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell. New York : Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/collectessayorwe00geor .
PerryCook, Taija. "Orwell Talked of 'Destroying People' by 'Denying and Obliterating' Their History?" Snopes, 21 June 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/george-orwell-destroying-people/ .
Quotations for Speeches. London : Paragon Books, 1994. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/quotationsforspe0000unse_e6p2 .
Ralph Keyes. The Quote Verifier. St. Martin's Press, 2006. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/quoteverifierwho00keye .
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