Oceania Quotes

• Oceania is vast, Oceania is expanding, Oceania is hospitable and generous, Oceania is humanity rising from the depths of brine and regions of fire deeper still, Oceania is us. We are the sea, we are the ocean.

  Epeli Hau'ofa

  Ocean, Fire, Sea

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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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• The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.

  George Orwell

  Past, Agreement, Evil

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.135, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• One of the more positive aspects of our existence in Oceania is that truth is flexible and negotiable, despite attempts by some of us to impose political, religious, and other forms of absolutionism. Versions of truth may be accepted for particular purposes and moments, only to be reversed when circumstances demand other versions; and we often accede to things just to stop being bombarded, and then go ahead and do what we want to do anyway.

  Epeli Hau'ofa

  Religious, Bombarded By, Political

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• The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. ... War is Peace.

  George Orwell

  War, Nineteen, Becoming

  George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.431, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.

  George Orwell

  War, Literature

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.135, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science.' The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc.

  George Orwell

  Past, Achievement, Principles

  George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.418, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, "just to keep the people frightened."

  George Orwell

  War, Party, Government

  George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.335, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• All cultures forged by nations—the noble indigenous past of America, the brilliant civilization of Europe, the wise history of Asian nations, and the ancestral wealth of Africa and Oceania—are corroded by the American way of life. In this way, neoliberalism imposes the destruction of nations and groups of nations in order to reconstruct them according to a single model. This is a planetary war, of the worst and cruelest kind, waged against humanity.

  Subcomandante Marcos

  Wise, War, Past

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• The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense. Actually, the three philosophies are barely distinguishable.

  George Orwell

  Philosophy, Two, Common Sense

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison “The Complete Works of George Orwell: Nineteen eighty-four”

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• I used to wonder: Is Huxley right or is Orwell right? It turns out they're both right. First you get the new world state and endless diversions as you are disempowered. And then, as we are watching, credit dries up, and the cheap manufactured goods of the consumer society are no longer cheap. Then you get the iron fist of Oceania, of Orwell's 1984.

  Chris Hedges

  Iron, Credit, World

  Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. July 14, 2011.

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• Modernism in a way, early modernism, for instance, in pictures, was turning against perspective and Europe. And all early modernism is actually from out of Europe, when you think of cubism is African, is looking at Africa, Matisse is looking at the arabesque, Oceania. Europe was the optical projection that had become photography, that had become film, that became television and it conquered the world.

  David Hockney

  Photography, Thinking, Europe

  "Interview: “John Tusa Interviews David Hockney” (2004)". Interview with John Tusa, www.americansuburbx.com. May 21, 2009.

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• Every time that a man has, with a pure heart, called upon Osiris, Dionysus, Buddha, the Tao, etc., the Son of God has answered him by sending the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit has acted upon his soul, not by inciting him to abandon his religious tradition, but by bestowing upon him light. It is, therefore, useless to send out missions to prevail upon the peoples of Asia, Africa or Oceania to enter the Church.

  Simone Weil

  Religious, Heart, Son

  "Letter to a Priest". Book by Simone Weil, section 8, 1951.

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