George Orwell Quotes - Page 20

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But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.

George Orwell

Party, Blow, Hatred

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

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For a second, two seconds, they had exchanged an equivocal glance, and that was the end of the story. But even that was a memorable event, in the locked loneliness in which one had to live.

George Orwell

Loneliness, Memorable, Two

George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.120, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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[What Hayek] does not see, or will not admit, [is] that a return to "free" competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the State. The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them. Professor Hayek denies that free capitalism necessarily leads to monopoly, but in practice that is where it has led, and since the vast majority of people would far rather have State regimentation than slumps and unemployment, the drift towards collectivism is bound to continue if popular opinion has any say in the matter.

George Orwell

Mean, Winning, Practice

George Orwell (2003). “Orwell: The Observer Years”, Atlantic Books (UK)

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I felt as if I was the only person awake in a city of sleepwalkers. That's an illusion, of course. When you walk through a crowd of strangers it's next door to impossible not to imagine that they're all waxworks, but probably they're thinking just the same about you.

George Orwell

Thinking, Doors, Cities

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

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Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache... Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.

George Orwell

Men, Thinking, Perfection

"Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun". Tribune, December 20, 1943.

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In any form of art designed to appeal to large numbers of people,...[t]he rich man is usually 'bad', and his machinations are invariably frustrated.:; 'Good poor man defeats bad rich man' is an accepted formula.

George Orwell

Art, Men, Numbers

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

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I have the most evil memories of Spain, but I have very few bad memories of Spaniards.

George Orwell

Memories, Evil, Spain

George Orwell (2016). “Homage to Catalonia / Down and Out in Paris and London”, p.235, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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It was with the last revolution and the coming of INGSOC (Inglish/English Socialism) that the latest High learnt how to keep their position permanently - by cultivating ignorance among the other classes and by constantly surveying them through the Thought Police. Part of this strategy included the maintenance of a state of continual warfare, which Goldstein discussed in the third chapter. The three major powers were not fighting this perpetual war for victory; they were fighting to keep a state of emergency always present as the surest guarantee of authoritarianism.

George Orwell

War, Ignorance, Fighting

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The one certain thing was that death never came at an expected moment.

George Orwell

Death, Moments, Certain

George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.211, Arcturus Publishing

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In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.

George Orwell

Party, Writing, Squares

George Orwell (2001). “Orwell and Politics”, p.459, Penguin UK

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Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.

George Orwell

Pain, Hero, Wish

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

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To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words.... Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence.

George Orwell

Art, Struggle, Writing

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

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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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A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance, this new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.

George Orwell

War, Ignorance, Past

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She was very young...she still expected something from life, she did not understand that to push an inconvenient person over a cliff solves nothing.

George Orwell

Cliffs, Young, Solve

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But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.

George Orwell

Might, Horror, Trouble

George Orwell (2016). “1984”, p.90, ENRICH CULTURE GROUP LIMITED

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Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi.

George Orwell

Country, Democracy, Action

George Orwell (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.171, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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All people who have reached the point of becoming nations tend to despise foreigners, but there is not much doubt that the English-speaking races are the worst offenders. One can see this from the fact that as soon as they become fully aware of any foreign race they invent an insulting nickname for it.

George Orwell

Race, Racism, People

George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.24, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things.

George Orwell

Mind, Duty, Knows

George Orwell (2009). “Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays”, p.34, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom.

George Orwell

Worst Enemy, Nineteen, Nervous

George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.52, Arcturus Publishing

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Between pigs and human beings there was not and there need not be any clash of interest whatsoever.

George Orwell

Pigs, Needs, Being There

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But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

George Orwell

Brother, Struggle, Victory

"Animal Farm and 1984".

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The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.

George Orwell

Truth, Intelligent, Political

"The Prevention of Literature" (1946)

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The organizing principal for any culture is War.

George Orwell

War, Culture, Principal

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The past is a curious thing. It's with you all the time. I suppose an hour never passes without your thinking of things that happened ten or twenty years ago, and yet most of the time it's got no reality, it's just a set of facts that you've learned, like a lot of stuff in a history book. Then some chance sight or sound or smell, especially smell, sets you going, and the past doesn't merely come back to you, you're actually IN the past. It was like that at this moment.

George Orwell

Book, Past, Reality

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

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

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