George Orwell Quotes About Politics

Quotes about: Politics

• Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day be day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right.

  George Orwell

  Party, Book, Politics

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.249, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

  George Orwell

  Witty, Peace, Truth

  "Politics and the English Language" (1946)

• And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

  George Orwell

  Lying, Party, Past

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 3 (1949) See Orwell 19

• In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

  George Orwell

  Birthday, Lying, Political Language

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.282, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

  George Orwell

  Life, Fake People, Events

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.197, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same--everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same--people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world.

  George Orwell

  Wall, Lying, Heart

  George Orwell (2003). “Nineteen Eighty-four”, Penguin Mass Market

• 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

• It was with the last revolution and the coming of INGSOC (Inglish/English Socialism) that the latest High learnt how to keep their position permanently - by cultivating ignorance among the other classes and by constantly surveying them through the Thought Police. Part of this strategy included the maintenance of a state of continual warfare, which Goldstein discussed in the third chapter. The three major powers were not fighting this perpetual war for victory; they were fighting to keep a state of emergency always present as the surest guarantee of authoritarianism.

  George Orwell

  War, Ignorance, Fighting

• It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

  George Orwell

  Country, Political, Democracy

  George Orwell (1968). “The collected essays, journalism, and letters of George Orwell”

• Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion, and such truisms as that a machine-gun is still a machine-gun even when a "good" man is squeezing the trigger have turned into heresies which it is actually becoming dangerous to utter.

  George Orwell

  Gun, Men, Bully

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

• Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'.

  George Orwell

  Real, War, Practice

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

• ...in the negative part of Professor's Hayek's thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often - at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough - that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of.

  George Orwell

  Giving, Politics, Negative

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

• All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

  George Orwell

  Future, Past, Thinking

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

• The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. WHO wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.

  George Orwell

  Fear, Party, Important

  "1984".

• In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

  George Orwell

  Time, Writing, Political Language

  George Orwell (1956). “The Orwell Reader: Fiction, Essays, and Reportage”, New York : Harcourt, Brace

• But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than this. There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern.

  George Orwell

  Strong, Fall, Self Confidence

  George Orwell (2001). “The Complete Novels of George Orwell: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Nineteen Eighty-Four”, p.1306, Penguin UK

• You must be an intellectual. A normal person would never believe a thing like that.

  George Orwell

  Believe, Political, Intellectual

• The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men

  George Orwell

  Real, Fighting, Night

  George Orwell (1976). “The Penguin complete novels of George Orwell”

• How right the working classes are in their "materialism." How right they are to realize that the belly comes before the soul, not in the scale of values but in point of time!

  George Orwell

  Wisdom, Class, Soul

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

• As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

  George Orwell

  Wisdom, Writing, History

  1941 The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, pt.1,'England Your England'.

• A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war.

  George Orwell

  Fear, War, Atheism

  "1984".

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