George Orwell Quotes - Page 17

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If one looks closely one sees that there is no essential difference between a beggar's livelihood and that of numberless respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course - but then, many reputable trades are quite useless.

George Orwell

Doors, Weather, Differences

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War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.

George Orwell

Fear, War, Atheism

George Orwell (2016). “Animal Farm”, p.16, Hamilton Books

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

George Orwell

War, Literature, Oceania

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

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If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that can be given a name.

George Orwell

Names, Secret, Shapes

George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.212, Arcturus Publishing

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Anyone who knows of a provable instance of colour discrimination ought always to expose it.

George Orwell

Discrimination, Colour, Instance

George Orwell (1968). “The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: As I please, 1943-1945”

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Within any important issue, there are always aspects no one wishes to discuss.

George Orwell

Issues, Wish, Important

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If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?

George Orwell

Ordinary, Literature, Vegetarian

George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.335, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Lastly, tea--unless one is drinking it in the Russian style--should be drunk WITHOUT SUGAR. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.

George Orwell

Drinking, Beer, Drunk

George Orwell, Peter Hobley Davison, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “Smothered under journalism: 1946”

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I believe that the BBC, in spite of the stupidity of its foreign propaganda and the unbearable voices of its announcers, is very truthful. It is generally regarded here as more reliable than the press.

George Orwell

Believe, Voice, Stupidity

1941 In the Partisan Review,15 Apr. Reprinted in Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, vol.2.

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There are some situations from which one can only escape by acting like a devil or a lunatic.

George Orwell

Funny, Clever, Smart

George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.344, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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People invent new machines and improve existing ones almost unconsciously, rather as a Somnambulist will go walking in his sleep. The interesting puzzle in our times is that we so willingly sleepwalk through the process of reconstituting the conditions of human existence.

George Orwell

Sleep, People, Interesting

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For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?

George Orwell

Science, Past, Two

George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.178, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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The whole question of evolution seems less momentous than it did, because, unlike the Victorians, we do not feel that to be descended from animals is degrading to human dignity.

George Orwell

Animal, Dignity, Evolution

George Orwell (1986). “The complete works of George Orwell”

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A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

George Orwell

Men, Tragedy, Triumph

George Orwell (2009). “Critical Essays”

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"A minority of one"... the definition of insanity.

George Orwell

Crazy, Insanity, Minorities

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To die hating them, that was freedom.

George Orwell

Hate, Dies

George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.212, Arcturus Publishing

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There is a minority of gifted, willfuf people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class.

George Orwell

Writing, Class, People

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To hang on from day to day and from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed an unconquerable instinct, just as one's lungs will always draw the next breath so long as there is air available.

George Orwell

Air, Long, Nineteen

George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.246, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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By preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.

George Orwell

Hatred, Leader, Doctrine

George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: Smothered under journalism, 1946”

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People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has a man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases? 'Natural' death, almost by defintion, means something slow, smelly and painful.

George Orwell

Life, Death, War

George Orwell (2009). “Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays”, p.238, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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The common people, on the whole, are still living in the world of absolute good and evil from which the intellectuals have long since escaped.

George Orwell

Long, People, Evil

George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.146, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than this. There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern.

George Orwell

Strong, Fall, Self Confidence

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.1306, Penguin UK

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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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Poverty is spiritual halitosis.

George Orwell

Spiritual, Poverty

George Orwell (1969). “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, p.98, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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When the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.He becomes a sort of hollow,posing dummy,the conventional figure of a sahib.For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives",and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him.He wears a mask and his face grows to fit it.

George Orwell

Men, White Man, Tyrants

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Born: June 25, 1903
Died: January 21, 1950
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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