George Orwell Quotes About Belief

Quotes about: Belief

• Myths which are believed in tend to become true.

  George Orwell

  Truth, Political, Belief

  George Orwell, Peter Hobley Davison, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “I have tried to tell the truth: 1943-1944”

• The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

  George Orwell

  Faith, Believe, Reality

  After World War II; quoted in the London Financial Times, 13 May 2003.

• Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

  George Orwell

  Mean, Two, Mind

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 2, ch. 9 (1949)

• At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals.

  George Orwell

  Thinking, Effectiveness, Ideas

  "The Freedom of the Press". Unused preface to George Orwell "Animal Farm" (August 17, 1945), first published in "The Times Literary Supplement", September 15, 1972.

• Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

  George Orwell

  Reality, Bumps, Belief

  After World War II; quoted in the London Financial Times, 13 May 2003.

• There are some things only intellectuals are crazy enough to believe.

  George Orwell

  Inspirational, Crazy, Believe

• The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions - racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war - which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action.

  George Orwell

  Religious, Spring, War

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.150, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Power-worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

  George Orwell

  War, Winning, Power

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: Smothered under journalism, 1946”

• In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated. And so for the last ten years, I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement.

  George Orwell

  Country, Russia, Socialist Countries

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “It is what I think, 1947-1948”, Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd

• In my opinion nothing has contributed more to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country.

  George Orwell

  Country, Philosophy, Russia

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “It is what I think, 1947-1948”, Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd

• It reminded us that propaganda in some form or other lurks in every book, that every work of art has a meaning and a purpose - a political, social and religious purpose - that our aesthetic judgements are always coloured by our prejudices and beliefs

  George Orwell

  Religious, Art, Book

  George Orwell (1998). “The complete works of George Orwell”

• Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the Earth goes round the Sun; today, to believe the past is inalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.

  George Orwell

  Believe, Past, Minorities

  "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Book by George Orwell, 1949.

• The secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own infallibility with a power to learn from past mistakes.

  George Orwell

  Mistake, Past, Secret

  George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.164, Arcturus Publishing

• Contrary to popular belief, the past was not more eventful than the present. If it seems so it is because when you look backward things that happened years apart are telescoped together, and because very few of your memories come to you genuinely virgin.

  George Orwell

  Memories, Past, Years

  1940 Inside theWhale,'My Country Right or Left'.

• There is a geographical element in all belief-saying what seem profound truths in India have a way of seeming enormous platitudes in England, and vice versa . Perhaps the fundamental difference is that beneath a tropical sun individuality seems less distinct and the loss of it less important.

  George Orwell

  Loss, Differences, Profound

  George Orwell, Peter Hobley Davison, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1999). “A kind of compulsion, 1903-1936”, Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd

• The major problem of our time is the decay in the belief in personal immortality, and it cannot be dealt with while the average human being is either drudging like an ox or shivering in fear of the secret police... How right [the working classes] are to realize that the belly comes before the soul, not in the scale of values but in point of time!

  George Orwell

  Average, Class, Soul

  George Orwell (2009). “Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays”, p.164, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• We believe half-instinctively that evil always defeats itself in the long run. Pacifism is founded largely on this belief. Don't resist evil, and it will somehow destroy itself. But why should it? What evidence is there that it does... unless conquered from the outside by military force?

  George Orwell

  Running, Military, Believe

  George Orwell (2009). “Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays”, p.174, HMH

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