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George Orwell Quotes - Page 29

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One always abandons something in retreat. Look at Napoleon at the Beresina! He abandoned his whole army.

One always abandons something in retreat. Look at Napoleon at the Beresina! He abandoned his whole army.

Army, Looks, Retreat

George Orwell (2012). “Down and Out in Paris and London”, p.28, Lulu.com

If you ask any ordinary reader which of Dickens's proletarian characters he can remember, the three he is almost certain to mention are Bill Sykes, Sam Weller and Mrs. Gamp. A burglar, a valet and a drunken midwife-not exactly a representative cross-section of the English working class.

Character, Class, Ordinary

George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.50, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

No one, at any rate no English writer, has written better about childhood than Dickens. In spite of all the knowledge that has accumulated since, in spite of the fact that children are now comparatively sanely treated, no novelist has shown the same power of entering into the child's point of view.

Children, Views, Childhood

George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.

Struggle, Book, Writing

George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.316, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that the party was trying to achieve.

Lying, Party, Insecurity

George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.60, Arcturus Publishing

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.

Political, Revolution, Needs

'Inside the Whale' (1940) 'Charles Dickens'

The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism.

Cells, Organisms, Weariness

George Orwell (1976). “The Penguin complete novels of George Orwell”

When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

Leadership, Courage, Empowering Others

George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.114, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia's life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.

Heart, Rooms, Crystals

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

Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.

Disappointment, Law, Long

George Orwell (2016). “Animal Farm”, p.47, Hamilton Books

I managed to get my copy of Ulysses through safely this time. I rather wish I had never read it. It gives me an inferiority complex. When I read a book like that and then come back to my own work, I feel like a eunuch who has taken a course in voice production.

Book, Taken, Voice

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

Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional [or scholarly] writers.

Fighting, Thinking, Political

George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.157, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Money, money, all is money! Could you write even a penny novelette without money to put heart in you?

Writing, Heart, Pennies

George Orwell (1987). “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, Harvill Secker

I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

Done, Fool

"Shooting an Elephant" (1936)

And yet, just for a moment, what almost frightening power had sounded in that cry from only a few hundred throats! Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered?

Cry, Moments, Hundred

George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.169, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting and I think worth describing in detail.

Thinking, Interesting, Details

George Orwell (2016). “Homage to Catalonia / Down and Out in Paris and London”, p.195, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Except for the small revolutionary groups which exist in all countries, the whole world was determined upon preventing revolution in Spain. In particular the Communist Party, with Soviet Russia behind it, had thrown its whole weight against the revolution. It was the Communist thesis that revolution at this stage would be fatal and that what was to be aimed at in Spain was not workers' control, but bourgeois democracy. It hardly needs pointing out why 'liberal' capitalist opinion took the same line.

Country, Party, Russia

George Orwell (2016). “Homage to Catalonia / Down and Out in Paris and London”, p.54, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

All through my boyhood I had a profound conviction that I was no good, that I was wasting my time, wrecking my talents, behaving with monstrous folly and wickedness and ingratitude-and all this, it seemed, was inescapable, because I lived among laws which were absolute, like the law of gravity, but which it was not possible for me to keep.

Law, Profound, Wickedness

George Orwell, Peter Hobley Davison, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “It is what I think: 1947-1948”

[T]he outcry against killing women, if you accept killing at all, is sheer sentimentality.:; Why is it worse to kill a woman than a man?

Men, Killing, Accepting

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

Comrades," he said, "here is a point that must be settled. The wild creatures, such as rats and rabbits–are they our friends or our enemies? Let us put it to the vote. I propose this question to the meeting: Are rats comrades?" The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by an overwhelming majority that rats were comrades. There were only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted on both sides.

Dog, Taken, Cat

George Orwell (2016). “Animal Farm”, p.3, Hamilton Books

For after all, what is there behind, except money? Money for the right kind of education, money for influential friends, money for leisure and peace of mind, money for trips to Italy. Money writes books, money sells them. Give me not righteousness, O lord, give me money, only money.

Book, Writing, Giving

George Orwell (1987). “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, Harvill Secker

A fat man is never so happy as when he is describing himself as "robust.

Men, Obesity, Robust

George Orwell (1976). “The Penguin complete novels of George Orwell”

I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in ... but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape.

Attitude, Writing, Emotional

George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.311, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase in pain. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop.

Pain, Wish, Earth

George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.515, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It could not have been ten seconds, and yet it seemed a long time that their hands were clasped together. He had time to learn every detail of her hand.

Hands, Long, Together

George Orwell (1961). “1984”

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