George Orwell Quotes About Opinions

Quotes about: Opinions

• Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

  George Orwell

  Life, Happiness, Truth

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 7 (1949) See Orwell 19

• The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

  George Orwell

  Art, Attitude, Should Have

  George Orwell (2009). “Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays”, p.228, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• 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.

• Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.

  George Orwell

  Party, Past, Expression

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.140, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing.

  George Orwell

  Fear, Effectiveness, Challenges

  George Orwell (1987). “Animal farm: a fairy story”, Harvill Secker

• One cannot really be a Catholic and grown up.

  George Orwell

  Atheist, Catholic, Religion

• To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulne­ss while telling carefully constructe­d lies, to hold simultaneo­usly two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradict­ory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy.

  George Orwell

  Honesty, Integrity, Lying

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.136, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.

  George Orwell

  Country, Worst Enemy, Editors

  George Orwell (2009). “Animal Farm: A Fairy Story”, p.206, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• The relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.

  George Orwell

  Country, Freedom, Law

  George Orwell (2016). “Fifty Essays (George Orwell) (Literary Thoughts Edition)”, p.501, epubli

• What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked upon as a matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual liberty becasue they have no intellect.

  George Orwell

  Intellectual, Liberty, Matter

• 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 a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by "thou shalt not", the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by "love" or "reason", he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.

  George Orwell

  Thinking, Animal, Law

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.305, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, "just to keep the people frightened."

  George Orwell

  War, Party, Government

  George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.335, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• 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

• [What Hayek] does not see, or will not admit, [is] that a return to "free" competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the State. The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them. Professor Hayek denies that free capitalism necessarily leads to monopoly, but in practice that is where it has led, and since the vast majority of people would far rather have State regimentation than slumps and unemployment, the drift towards collectivism is bound to continue if popular opinion has any say in the matter.

  George Orwell

  Mean, Winning, Practice

  George Orwell (2003). “Orwell: The Observer Years”, Atlantic Books (UK)

• Public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law.

  George Orwell

  Animal, Law, Public Opinion

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.305, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.

  George Orwell

  Truth, Intelligent, Political

  "The Prevention of Literature" (1946)

• To talk, simply to talk! It sounds so little, and how much it is! When you have existed to the brink of middle age in bitter loneliness, among people to whom your true opinion on every subject on earth is blasphemy, the need to talk is the greatest of all needs.

  George Orwell

  Loneliness, People, Age

  George Orwell (1974). “Burmese Days”, p.117, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Except for the small revolutionary groups which exist in all countries, the whole world was determined upon preventing revolution in Spain. In particular the Communist Party, with Soviet Russia behind it, had thrown its whole weight against the revolution. It was the Communist thesis that revolution at this stage would be fatal and that what was to be aimed at in Spain was not workers' control, but bourgeois democracy. It hardly needs pointing out why 'liberal' capitalist opinion took the same line.

  George Orwell

  Country, Party, Russia

  George Orwell (2016). “Homage to Catalonia / Down and Out in Paris and London”, p.54, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• 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

• There is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion.

  George Orwell

  Literary Merit, Survival, Majority

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.320, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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