George Orwell Quotes - Page 2

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• 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

  57 Copy quote

• 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.

  George Orwell

  Believe, Facts, Shows

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

  67 Copy quote

• We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

  George Orwell

  Intelligent, Men, Intelligence

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

  66 Copy quote

• If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

  George Orwell

  Inspirational, Life, Freedom

  "The Freedom of the Press" (1945)

  295 Copy quote

• War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.

  George Orwell

  Country, Money, War

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: Facing unpleasant facts, 1937-1939”

  126 Copy quote

• Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past." "He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past.

  George Orwell

  Education, Past, Thinking

  141 Copy quote

• 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

  101 Copy quote

• The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right.

  George Orwell

  Party, Heart, Eye

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.178, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  112 Copy quote

• He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.

  George Orwell

  Faces, Fit, Mask

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.152, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  87 Copy quote

• Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.

  George Orwell

  Believe, Enemy, Atrocities

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.191, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  29 Copy quote

• It's not so much staying alive, it's staying human that's important. What counts is that we don't betray each other.

  George Orwell

  Important, Alive, Betray

  "Fictional character: Winston Smith". "1984", www.imdb.com. 1984.

  60 Copy quote

• War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

  George Orwell

  Strength, Peace, Freedom

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 1 (1949)

  91 Copy quote

• One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

  George Orwell

  Order, Doe, Revolution

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 3, ch. 3 (1949)

  76 Copy quote

• From the totalitarian point of view, history is something to be created rather than learned.

  George Orwell

  Views, Point Of View

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.259, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  57 Copy quote

• 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.

  39 Copy quote

• The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.

  George Orwell

  Real, Lefties, Division

  George Orwell's letter to Malcolm Muggeridge (December 4, 1948), as quoted in Ian Hunter "Malcolm Muggeridge: A Life", 1980.

  109 Copy quote

• The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

  George Orwell

  Lying, Objectivity, Deceit

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.26, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  107 Copy quote

• Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

  George Orwell

  Dream, Time, Peace

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

  142 Copy quote

• All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers.

  George Orwell

  Views, Age, Followers

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.289, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  84 Copy quote

• True freedom is the right to say something that others don't want to hear.

  George Orwell

  Want, True Freedom

  38 Copy quote

• Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain.

  George Orwell

  Pain, Stupid, Our World

  George Orwell (1961). “1984”

  64 Copy quote

• Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power.

  George Orwell

  Change, Party, Answers

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.354, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  47 Copy quote

• All that was required of them (i.e. the brain-washed masses) was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.

  George Orwell

  Memorial Day, Ideas, Evil

  181 Copy quote

• Right thinking will be rewarded, wrong thinking punished.

  George Orwell

  Thinking, Wrong Thinking

  20 Copy quote

• Apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99 % of the population exist.

  George Orwell

  People, Population, Teach

  "Diaries".

  10 Copy quote

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