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George Orwell Quotes - Page 18

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Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist? O'Brien: Of course he exists. Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me? O'Brien: You do not exist.

Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist? O'Brien: Of course he exists. Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me? O'Brien: You do not exist.

Brother, Doe, Like You

No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.

Learning, Unhappy, Looks

George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.

Art, Lying, Book

George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.315, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

While the game of deadlocks and bottle-necks goes on, another more serious game is also being played. It is governed by two axioms. One is that there can be no peace without a general surrender of sovereignty: the other is that no country capable of defending its sovereignty ever surrenders it. If one keeps these axioms in mind one can generally see the relevant facts in international affairs through the smoke-screen with which the newspapers surround them.

Country, Games, Two

George Orwell (1968). “The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: In front of your nose, 1945-1950”

It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought...should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.

Forgotten, Should, Adopted

The fact is that certain themes cannot be celebrated in words, and tyranny is one of them. No one ever wrote a good book in praise of the Inquisition.

Book, Facts, Praise

George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.265, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Winston worked in the RECORDS DEPARTMENT (a single branch of the Ministry of Truth) editing and writing for The Times. He dictated into a machine called a Speakwrite. Winston would receive articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, in Newspeak, rectify. If, for example, the Ministry of Plenty forecast a surplus, and in reality the result was grossly less, Winston's job was to change previous versions so the old version would agree with the new one.

Jobs, Writing, Reality

If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any practical result whatsoever, you've beaten them.

Investing, Results, Feels

As soon as you think of fishing you think of things that don't belong to the modern world. The very idea of sitting all day under a willow tree beside a quiet pool - and being able to find a quiet pool to sit beside- belongs to a time before the war, before radio, before aeroplanes, before Hitler.

War, Thinking, Lakes

George Orwell (1969). “Coming Up for Air”, p.93, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

And the bigger the fall, the bigger the joke. It would be better fun to throw a custard pie at a bishop than at a curate.

Fun, Fall, Pie

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

The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existance, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it.

Memories, Party, Past

George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.305, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable.

Men, Human Nature, Turns

George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.360, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

If one harbours anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible.

Loyalty, Hatred, Patriotism

"I belong to the Left: 1945".

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

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

Scientific education for the masses will do little good, and probably a lot of harm, if it simply boils down to more physics, more chemistry, more biology, etc to the detriment of literature and history. Its probable effect on the average human being would be to narrow the range of his thoughts and make him more than ever contemptuous of such knowledge as he did not possess.

Average, Lefties, Would Be

"What is Science?". Tribune, orwell.ru. October 26, 1945.

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.

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

Recently I was reading somewhere or other an Italian curio-dealer who attempted to sell a 17th century crucifix to J.P. Morgan. Inside it was concealed a stiletto. What a perfect symbol of the Christian religion.

Christian, Reading, Italian

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

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

Wisdom, Writing, History

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

When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases - bestial atrocities, iron heel, blood-stained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder - one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy, the appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved

Tired, Blood, Iron

The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

Mean, Thinking, Insightful

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

The secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own infallibility with a power to learn from past mistakes.

Mistake, Past, Secret

George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.164, Arcturus Publishing

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.

Years, Forever, Nineteen

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

The Party is not interested in the overt act. The thought is all we care about.

Party, Care, Tyranny

George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.344, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The primary aim of modern warfare ... is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.

Warfare, Machines, Use

George Orwell (1963). “George Orwell's 1984”, p.60, Dramatic Publishing

The only thing for which we can combine is the underlying ideal of Socialism; justice and liberty. But it is hardly strong enough to call this ideal underlying. It is almost completely forgotten. It has been buried beneath layer after layer of doctnaire priggishness, party squabbles and half-backed progressivism until it is like a diamond hidden under a monition of dung. The job of the Socialist is to get it out again. Justice and liberty! Those are the words that have got to ring like a bugle across the world.

Strong, Jobs, Party

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