George Orwell quotes - page 23

Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. (George Orwell)
Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy - or even two orthodoxies, as often happens - good writing stops. View quote
George Orwell
A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. View quote
George Orwell
National Socialism is a form of Socialism, is emphatically revolutionary, does crush the property owner as surely as it crushes the worker. The two regimes, having started from opposite ends, are rapidly evolving towards the same system-a form of oligarchical collectivism. View quote
George Orwell
But is it really necessary, in 1947, to teach children to use expressions like "native" and "Chinaman"? View quote
George Orwell
There is a geographical element in all belief-saying what seem profound truths in India have a way of seeming enormous platitudes in England, and vice versa. View quote
George Orwell
The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future. View quote
George Orwell
If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event,-that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death. View quote
George Orwell
At night all cats are grey. View quote
George Orwell
Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother. View quote
George Orwell
He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him), and took a sort of pleasure in thinking that human affairs would never improve. (George Orwell)
To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past. View quote
George Orwell
Until they become conscious, they will never rebel. View quote
George Orwell
Four legs good, two legs better! All Animals Are Equal. But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others. View quote
George Orwell
A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims... but accomplices. View quote
George Orwell
I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines' View quote
George Orwell
As I was brought up in this tradition myself I can recognise it under strange disguises, and also sympathise with it, for even at its stupidest and most sentimental it is a comelier thing than the shallow self-righteousness of the left-wing intelligentsia. View quote
George Orwell
We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. View quote
George Orwell
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. View quote
George Orwell
Do you know why you're here? Shall I tell you why we brought you here? To cure you.To make you sane. View quote
George Orwell
One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that no ordinary man could be such a fool. (George Orwell)
But the thing that I saw in your face No power can disinherit No bomb that ever burst Shatters the crystal spirit. View quote
George Orwell
Most revolutionaries are potential Tories, because they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of society once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any other. View quote
George Orwell
The English are not happy unless they are miserable, the Irish are not at peace unless they are at war, and the Scots are not at home unless they are abroad. View quote
George Orwell
To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armor, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous. View quote
George Orwell