I first read it when I was 13, and it made a profound impact on me.

An interesting observation raised by the specific quote you chose, though. Orwell's work focused on expressing meaning in the clearest way possible. But the verse from Proverbs (I think?) actually demonstrates something more profound -- it's semantics as well as metaphor and poetry. And it's externally/nature-based metaphor, as all metaphor then was, as opposed to internally-based metaphor as nearly all metaphor today is.

In "Philology and the Incarnation", Owen Barfield makes the point that there was no concept of abstract language as we use it today, 2-3,000 years ago (when the Proverbs were written). Of course, abstract language is almost entirely how we communicate today, but it was non-existant for a long period of history. I observe that poetry (and our ability to apprehend it) has taken a nosedive since we moved into "newspeak".