A thought terminating cliché is a commonly-used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance, especially in cases where the person experiencing the cognitive dissonance might resolve it by reaching a thought-provoking epiphany.
The term was popularized by Robert Lifton in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism.
The thought-terminating cliché is related to the opaque pigeonhole, or closed category, which also does not permit analysis.
In George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four the fictional constructed language Newspeak is designed to reduce language entirely to a set of thought-terminating clichés.
See also
