1984 Important Quotes

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

  George Orwell

  Strength, Peace, Freedom

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

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• For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

  George Orwell

  Running, Ignorance, Thinking

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.282, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

  George Orwell

  Truth, Freedom, Knowledge

  48 Copy quote

• Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.

  George Orwell

  Truth, Reality, Mind

  George Orwell (1963). “George Orwell's 1984”, p.72, Dramatic Publishing

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• For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?

  George Orwell

  Science, Past, Two

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

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• Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.

  George Orwell

  Nineteen, Doe

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.129, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

  George Orwell

  Time, Freedom, Future

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• It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children

  George Orwell

  Children, People, Normal

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.126, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 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

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• Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

  George Orwell

  Mean, Thinking, Orthodoxy

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.152, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth.

  George Orwell

  War, Lying, Drug

  George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.31, Arcturus Publishing

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• 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)

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• If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened - that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.

  Winston Smith

  Party, Past, Hands

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• We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.

  George Orwell

  Power, Intention, Relinquishing

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

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• He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable.

  George Orwell

  Past, Nineteen, Ignorance In 1984

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.128, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering-a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons-a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting-three hundred million people all with the same face.

  George Orwell

  Party, Fighting, Warrior

  George Orwell (2016). “1984”, p.84, ENRICH CULTURE GROUP LIMITED

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• If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable - what then?

  George Orwell

  Past, Mind, World

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

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• 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

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• Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.

  George Orwell

  Political, Nineteen, Impossible

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 5 (1949)

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• We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull.

  George Orwell

  Reality, Skulls, Mind

  George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.569, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.

  George Orwell

  Party, Blow, Hatred

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

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• 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”

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• He who controls the past controls the future.

  Laozi

  Future, Past, Political Language

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• We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.

  George Orwell

  Darkness, Nineteen, 1984 Movie

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.127, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.

  George Orwell

  Love, Relationship, Marriage

  George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.191, Arcturus Publishing

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