These euphemism quotes will inspire you. Euphemism is a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging euphemism quotes, euphemism sayings, and euphemism proverbs.
Best Euphemism Quotes
- “The Good Book – one of the most remarkable euphemisms ever coined.” ~ Ashley Montagu
- “Women’s fashion is a euphemism for fashion created by men for women.” ~ Andrea Dworkin
- “Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.” ~ Quentin Crisp
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“Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.” ~ George P. Shultz
- “Any euphemism ceases to be euphemistic after a time and the true meaning begins to show through. It’s a losing game, but we keep on trying.” ~ Joseph Wood Krutch
- “The more syllables a euphemism has, the further divorced from reality it is.” ~ George Carlin
- “in terms of the biology of the planet, development is a euphemism for destruction.” ~ Helen Caldicott
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“Frankness is usually a euphemism for rudeness.” ~ Muriel Spark
- “A composite is a euphemism for a lie. It’s disorderly. It’s dishonest and it’s not journalism.” ~ Fred W. Friendly
- “Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on Simplicity.” ~ Plato
- “Euphemism is a human device to conceal the horrors of reality.” ~ Paul Johnson
- “Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission, they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head, make their point of constructive criticism and continue on in calm forbearance. Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.” ~ Quentin Crisp
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“Gratitude is a euphemism for resentment.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein
- “Faith is a euphemism for prejudice and religion is a euphemism for superstition.” ~ Paul Kenneth Keller
- “Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.” ~ Quentin Crisp
- “The language of the younger generation has the brutality of the city and an assertion of threatening power at hand, not to come. It is military, theatrical, and at its most coherent probably a lasting repudiation of empty courtesy and bureaucratic euphemism.” ~ Elizabeth Hardwick
- “The company calls it ‘downsizing’ or ‘rightsizing.’ My own informal “Name the Layoff” contest produced some other euphemisms: Retroactive Hiring Freeze, Resume Revision Days, Amway Opportunity Time, and Corporation Lite.” ~ Dale Dauten
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“Sleeping together is a euphemism for people, but tantamount to marriage with cats.” ~ Marge Piercy
- “As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action.” ~ Gore Vidal
- “Patrimonial capitalism’s legacy is that many people see reform as a euphemism for corruption and self-dealing.” ~ James Surowiecki
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“To use a Southern euphemism, our space program has been snake-bit.” ~ Al Gore
- “When I went to medical school, I was taught about two basic kinds of diabetes: juvenile onset and adult onset. From the time I did my training in medical school to the end of my residency we were already seeing the transformation of adult onset diabetes into Type II, which is what we call it now, which from my perspective is a euphemism we have draped over this condition to conceal the fact that what was a chronic disease in midlife is now epidemic in children. Frankly, Type II diabetes in a seven year old is adult onset diabetes. We just don’t want to confront that unpleasant fact.” ~ David Katz
- “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible… Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness… Political language [is] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” ~ George Orwell
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“When we shrink from the sight of something, when we shroud it in euphemism, that is usually a sign of inner conflict, of unsettled hearts, a sign that something has gone wrong in our moral reasoning.” ~ Matthew Scully
- “We want to create a sort of linguistic Lourdes, where evil and misfortune are dispelled by a dip in the waters of euphemism” ~ Robert Hughes
- “The alternative which I favor is to renounce all euphemisms and grasp the nettle of the word atheism itself, precisely because it is a taboo word carrying frissons of hysterical phobia. Critical mass may be harder to achieve than with some non-confrontational euphemism, but if we did achieve it with the dread word atheist, the political impact would be all the greater.” ~ Richard Dawkins
- “In practice [monetary management] is merely a high-sounding euphemism for continuous currency debasement. It consists of constant lying in order to support constant swindling. Instead of automatic currencies based on gold, people are forced to take managed currencies based on guile. Instead of precious metals they hold paper promises whose value falls with every bureaucratic whim. And they are suavely assured that only hopelessly antiquated minds dream of returning to truth and honesty and solvency and gold.” ~ Henry Hazlitt
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“when I spoke of having a drink, it was a euphemism for having a whole flock of them.” ~ Margaret Halsey
- “To call yourself ‘plus size’ is just a euphemism for being fat. Life is much easier when you’re thinner. Big is not beautiful, of course a job comes down to how you look.” ~ Katie Hopkins
- “The middles cleave to euphemisms not just because they’re an aid in avoiding facts. They like them also because they assist their social yearnings towards pomposity. This is possible because most euphemisms permit the speaker to multiply syllables, and the middle class confuses sheer numerousness with weight and value.” ~ Paul Fussell
- “The term ‘free market’ is really a euphemism. What the far right actually means by this term is ‘lawless market.’ In a lawless market, entrepreneurs can get away with privatizing the benefits of the market (profits) while socializing its costs (like pollution).” ~ Steve Kangas
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“”Fussy eater” is a euphemism for “big pain in the ass.”” ~ George Carlin
- “Every individual needs revolution, inner division, overthrow of the existing order, and renewal, but not by forcing them upon his neighbors under the hypocritical cloak of Christian love or the sense of social responsibility or any of the other beautiful euphemisms for unconscious urges to personal power.” ~ Carl Jung
- “As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.” ~ Gore Vidal
- “In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.” ~ George Orwell
- “It is time to stop the mealy-mouthed euphemisms: ‘Nationalists’, ‘Loyalists’, ‘Communities’, ‘Ethnic Groups’, ‘Cultures’, ‘Civilizations’. Religions is the word you need. Religions is the word you are struggling hypocritially to avoid.” ~ Richard Dawkins
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“Euphemism in the workplace does not end with job descriptions. It reaches a pusillanimous peak at the other end of the work process – in dismissal.” ~ Nigel Rees
- “When you say a wall, you mean a wall. You want to build a fence, you say fence. You don’t use it as a euphemism for a virtual, say surveillance from hot air balloons that are floating over the border which some people have advocated.” ~ Steve King
- “There should be a new, more honest euphemism. Like, I’m leaving office because I plan to solicit more anonymous sex in bathrooms.” ~ Tina Fey
- “[Madness] happened so frequently. I think what I was most maddest about – and it’s in the book [Speaking Freely: A Memoir] – when the House and the Senate, back in 1984, were debating a bill that would – at least delay and maybe stop some of the ex – summary execution of disabled children – infants. And the Down syndrome kids and other kids had been, in some cases, routinely let die, to use the euphemism.” ~ Nat Hentoff
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“The Japanese tend to communicate via nuance and euphemism, often leaving important things unsaid; whereas Americans tend to think they’re being subtle when they refrain from grabbing the listener by the shirt.” ~ Dave Barry
- “We have entered a period of intolerance which combines, as it sometimes does in America, with a sugary taste for euphemism.” ~ Robert Hughes
- “All euphemisms are dishonest, but many are designed to make life easier” ~ Kate Burridge
- “Planned Parenthood’s entire existence is basically based on keeping people in the dark through euphemism. You don’t call it genocide, you call it reproductive health. So that’s why Planned Parenthood has – nobody really thought.” ~ Greg Gutfeld
- “Underhand euphemism are used, not so much to conceal offence and to deliberately disguise a topic and deceive” ~ Kate Burridge
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“Although the term dialogue was really a euphemism for scientists trying to kill each other, this format worked very well.” ~ Joao Magueijo
- “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” ~ George Orwell
- “Tact is kind; diplomacy is useful; euphemism is harmless and sometimes entertaining” ~ Julian Burnside
- “The lyric abstrusities of Auden ring mystically down the circular canals of my ear and it begins to look like snow. The good gray conservative obliterating snow. Smoothing (in one white lacy euphemism after another) out all the black bleak angular unangelic nauseous ugliness of the blasted sterile world: dry buds, shrunken stone houses, dead vertical moving people all all all go under the great white beguiling wave. And come out transformed. Lose yourself in a numb dumb snow-daubed lattice of crystal and come out pure with the white virginal veneer you never had.” ~ Sylvia Plath
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“I’m with an old family” was the euphemism used to dignify the professions of white folks’ cooks and maids who talked so affectedly among their own kind in Roxbury [Massachusetts] that you couldn’t even understand them.” ~ Malcolm X
- “To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we’re deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We’re talking about Islam being a religion of peace that’s been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that’s not a religion of peace, it is Islam.” ~ Sam Harris
- “For one thing, before the 20th century, there were plenty of genocides. We tend to forget about them, partly because they weren’t as well documented and partly because, until recently, people didn’t care. We used euphemisms like ‘sackings’ and ‘sieges’ instead of calling them ‘genocides.'” ~ Steven Pinker
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“It hurt, and that is not a euphemism. It hurt like a beating.” ~ John Green
- “Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It’s never been anything but your religion.” ~ J. D. Salinger
- “Kate, perhaps you need to explain to your significant other that he is in no position to give me orders. Last time I checked, his title was Beast Lord, which is a gentle euphemism for a man who strips nude at night and runs around through the woods hunting small woodland creatures. I’m a premier Master of the Dead. I will go where I please.” ~ Ilona Andrews
- “She started thinking about all the euphemisms for death, all the anxious taboos that had always fascinated her. It was too bad you could never have an intelligent discussion on the subject. People were either too young or too old, or else they didn’t have time.” ~ Tove Jansson
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“Some kids get called “bundles of joy” or “slices of heaven” or “dreams come true.” We got “the fifty-fourth generation of DNA experiments.” Doesn’t have the same warm and fuzzy feel. But maybe I’m oversensitive.” ~ James Patterson
- “Do not put statements in the negative form. And don’t start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. De-accession euphemisms. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.” ~ William Safire
- “Cloud computing is a great euphemism for centralization of computer services under one server.” ~ Evgeny Morozov
- “Users of clichés frequently have more sinister intentions beyond laziness and conventional thinking. Relabelling events often entails subtle changes of meaning. War produces many euphemisms, downplaying or giving verbal respectability to savagery and slaughter.” ~ Patrick Cockburn
- “Today, when death and old age are increasingly concealed behind euphemisms and comforting baby talk, and life is threatened with being smothered in the mass consumption of hypnotic mechanized vulgarity, the need to confront man with the reality of his situation is greater than ever. For the dignity of man lies in his ability to face reality in all its senselessness; to accept it freely, without fear, without illusions – and to laugh at it.” ~ Martin Esslin
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“Global governance is just a euphemism for global government.” ~ Jacques Attali
- “Euphemisms are for the differently brained.” ~ Spider Robinson
- “The intangibles are a euphemism for we have no idea what we’re looking for but we know it when we see it.” ~ Brian Billick
- “The Greeks distinguished between good and bad behavior, language that enhanced or diminished persons. Being intoxicated with scientism, we fail to recognize that the seemingly technical terms used to identify psychiatric illnesses and interventions are simply dysphemisms and euphemisms.” ~ Thomas Szasz
