George Orwell Quotes About Habits

Quotes about: Habits

• 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

• There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live-did live, from habit that became instinct-in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

  George Orwell

  Knowing, Police, Darkness

  George Orwell (2003). “1984”, Plume Books

• It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself-anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face ... was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime.

  George Orwell

  Expression, Giving, Anxiety

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.161, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that evey sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.

  George Orwell

  Darkness, Sound, Assumption

  "1984". Book by George Orwell, June 8, 1949.

• Creeds like pacifism or anarchism, which seem on the surface to imply a complete renunciation of power, rather encourage this habit of mind. For if you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics ... the more you are in the right (and) everybody else should be bullied into thinking otherwise.

  George Orwell

  Thinking, Mind, Atheism

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.335, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug - that is, grudgingly and suspiciously. Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous, and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes.

  George Orwell

  Drug, Machines, Surrender

  George Orwell (2016). “The Road to Wigan Pier”, p.135, Jester House Publishing

• I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life.

  George Orwell

  Lonely, Children, Ambition

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.309, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional [or scholarly] writers.

  George Orwell

  Fighting, Thinking, Political

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.157, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.

  George Orwell

  Clarity, Trouble, Imitation

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.157, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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