Life & Wisdom Quote by Quentin Crisp

Crisp’s line slices through polite language with the kind of dandified cruelty he perfected: euphemism as stink management. “Unpleasant truths” are not denied here; they’re just deodorized, dressed for company, made presentable enough to survive the room. The joke lands because it’s bodily. “Diplomatic cologne” turns rhetoric into scent, implying cover-up, performance, and a certain desperation to be liked. Euphemisms don’t remove the odor; they announce that someone thinks there’s something to hide.

The intent is less to ban euphemism than to expose its social function. “Diplomatic” points to institutions and dinner parties alike: governments softening “civilian casualties,” employers reframing “layoffs,” families translating “drunk” into “tired.” Crisp understood that language is a costume, and that costumes are often for the comfort of observers, not the dignity of the wearer. The subtext is about power: euphemisms are typically applied downward, administered by those who can afford distance from the mess. If the truth is “unpleasant,” it’s unpleasant for someone; cologne is what the unaffected spritz on before entering the scene.

Context matters. Crisp, a queer English writer who built a public persona around unflinching candor, spent decades watching society sanitize what it feared naming: sexuality, poverty, violence, illness. His aphorism reads like a survival tactic sharpened into a moral stance. Don’t just mistrust the softened phrase; ask who benefits from the softening, and what reality is being made easier to ignore.