George Orwell Quotes About Desire

Quotes about: Desire

• By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions and tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled 'good' or 'bad'...By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.

  George Orwell

  Block, Believe, Mean

• A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.

  George Orwell

  Flames, People, Desire

  George Orwell (1961). “1984”

• Certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain... Hitler, because in his joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life.

  George Orwell

  Loyalty, Pain, Struggle

  George Orwell's review of the book "Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler in "New English Weekly", March 21, 1940.

• The main motive for nonattachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.

  George Orwell

  Love, Pain, Hard Work

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.358, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• The upper class desire to remain so, the middle class wish to overthrow the upper class, and the lower class want a classless system.

  George Orwell

  Class, Wish, Desire

• The whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish day-dream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.

  George Orwell

  Dream, Revenge, Punishment

  George Orwell (2009). “Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays”, p.186, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• [You write out of the] desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, etc., etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive and a strong one.

  George Orwell

  Strong, Clever, Writing

• Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

  George Orwell

  Art, Attitude, Book

  George Orwell, Sonia Orwell, Ian Angus (1968). “The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: An age like this, 1920-1940”, Harvill Secker

• Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.

  George Orwell

  Pain, Believe, Hard Work

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “Our job is to make life worth living, 1949-1950”, Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd

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