Thought Police Quotes

• 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

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• Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.

  George Orwell

  Years, Forever, Nineteen

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.121, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word.

  George Orwell

  Night, Names, People

  George Orwell (2016). “1984”, p.19, ENRICH CULTURE GROUP LIMITED

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• The Thought Police: To censor and protect.

  Craig Reucassel

  Police, Protect

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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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• Campuses that were once havens of free speech are now patrolled and regulated by thought police. Intellectual dishonesty has become a job requirement for university administrators.

  Michael Barone

  Jobs, Police, Intellectual

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• 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.

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• 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

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• We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder ‘censorship,’ we call it ‘concern for commercial viability.

  David Mamet

  Freedom, Media, Expression

  David Mamet (1986). “Writing in restaurants”, Viking Adult

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• Women can say anything they want to men, or blacks to whites, with impunity. But strong words in the other direction can bring down on students the wrath of the campus thought police - as well as punishments that can extend to suspension or expulsion.

  Thomas Sowell

  Strong, Men, Wrath

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• I think that when we start thought-policing people and idea-policing people, then that's crossing a line. And I think, you know, everybody's so afraid of this imaginary line of thought police that they forget their own personal safety.

  Ashton Kutcher

  Thinking, Ideas, People

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• There must be renewed recognition that societies are kept stable and healthy by reform, not by thought police; this means there must be free play for so-called subversive ideas - every idea subverts the old to make way for the new. To shut off subversion is to shut off peaceful progress and to invite revolution and war.

  I. F. Stone

  War, Mean, Play

  I. F. Stone (2009). “The Best of I.F. Stone”, p.27, PublicAffairs

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• While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Country, Book, Names

  "A Man Without a Country". Book by Kurt Vonnegut (pp. 102-103), September 15, 2005.

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• We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future.

  George Orwell

  True Life, Splinters, Life Is

  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.1280, Penguin UK

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• The police are the public and the public are the police.

  Robert Peel

  Police, Policemen

  "Introduction to Criminal Justice" by Larry Siegel, Cengage Learning, (p. 202), January 5, 2009.

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• We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone. But how far away that future may be, there is no knowing. It might be a thousand years. At present nothing is possible except to extend the area of sanity little by little. We cannot act collectively. We can only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to individual, generation after generation. In the face of the Thought Police there is no other way.

  George Orwell

  Dust, Years, Knowing

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

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• Religion is run by thought police. 'Obey. Listen. This is what you do. Don't ask questions. Go die for your country.' The spirituality says, 'Okay, you can die for your country, but know what you're doing while you're doing it.'

  Tommy Chong

  Running, Country, Police

  Interview with Brian Polk, www.avclub.com. January 30, 2008.

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• Philosophical argument, trying to get someone to believe something whether he wants to believe it or not, is not, I have held, a nice way to behave towards someone; also it does not fit the original motivation for studying or entering philosophy. That motivation is puzzlement, curiousity, a desire to understand, not a desire to produce uniformity of belief. Most people do not want to become thought-police. The philosophical goal of explanation rather than proof not only is morally better, it is more in accord with one's philosophical motivation.

  Robert Nozick

  Motivation, Philosophy, Nice

  Robert Nozick (1981). “Philosophical Explanations”, p.13, Harvard University Press

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• I find that people today tend to use them interchangeably. I use African-American, because I teach African Studies as well as African-American Studies, so it's easy, neat and convenient. But sometimes, when you're in a barber shop, somebody'll say, "Did you see what that Negro did?" A lot of people slip in and out of different terms effortlessly, and I don't think the thought police should be on patrol.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Thinking, People, African American

  Source: pittsburghurbanmedia.com

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• I use African-American, because I teach African Studies as well as African-American Studies, so it's easy, neat and convenient. But sometimes, when you're in a barber shop, somebody'll say, "Did you see what that Negro did?" A lot of people slip in and out of different terms effortlessly, and I don't think the thought police should be on patrol.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Thinking, People, African American

  "Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - The "The African Americans" Interview". Interview with Kam Williams, aalbc.com.

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• To respect Louis Farrakhan, we must understand, is simply to agree with him... If dissent is now also to be thought of as a form of 'dissing,' then we have indeed succumbed to the thought police.

  Salman Rushdie

  Police, Religion, Dissing

  Salman Rushdie (2008). “Step Across This Line”, p.81, Random House

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