A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks.
 George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946). copy citation

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Author George Orwell
Source Politics and the English Language
Topic failure drinking
Date 1946
Language English
Reference in "Horizon"
Note
Weblink http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/

Context

“it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” source