George Orwell Quotes - Page 7

Quotes about:

• The object of power is power.

  George Orwell

  Power, Objects

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 3, ch. 3 (1949)

  16 Copy quote

• The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.

  George Orwell

  Running, War, Intelligent

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.283, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  11 Copy quote

• Records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth.

  George Orwell

  War, Lying, Drug

  George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.31, Arcturus Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• To be corrupted by totalitarianism, one does not have to live in a totalitarian country.

  George Orwell

  Country, Doe, Totalitarianism

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

  17 Copy quote

• The planting of a tree, especially one of the long-living hardwood trees, is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil.

  George Orwell

  Roots, Long, Evil

  George Orwell (2009). “Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays”, p.221, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw him into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as 'Sir'

  George Orwell

  Jobs, Land, House

  George Orwell (2004). “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, p.83, Penguin UK

  31 Copy quote

• I do not wish to comment on the work; if it does not speak for itself, it is a failure.

  George Orwell

  Writing, Wish, Doe

  George Orwell (1997). “The complete works of George Orwell”

  15 Copy quote

• The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils.

  George Orwell

  Two, Evil, Choices

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.175, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?

  George Orwell

  Believe, Animal, Decision

  George Orwell (2016). “Animal Farm”, p.20, Hamilton Books

  64 Copy quote

• And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

  George Orwell

  Lying, Party, Past

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 3 (1949) See Orwell 19

  23 Copy quote

• History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

  George Orwell

  Party, Endless

  George Orwell (2012). “1984”, p.51, Oberon Books

  14 Copy quote

• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

  George Orwell

  Cutting, Thinking, Passive Voice

  George Orwell (1953). “Shooting an Elephant: And Other Essays”

  27 Copy quote

• The Communism of the English intellectual is something explicable enough. It is the patriotism of the deracinated.

  George Orwell

  Intellectual, Communism, Enough

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.124, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, but then fail all the more completely because he drinks.

  George Orwell

  Men, May, Failing

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.270, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

• Power is not a means; it is an end.

  George Orwell

  Mean, Ends

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 3, ch. 3 (1949)

  11 Copy quote

• The writers I care about most and never grow tired of are: Shakespeare, Swift, Fielding, Dickens, Charles Reade, Flaubert and, among modern writers, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence. But I believe the modern writer who has influenced me most is Somerset Maugham, whom I admire immensely for his power of telling a story straightforwardly and without frills.

  George Orwell

  Believe, Tired, Stories

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: A patriot after all, 1940-1941”

  26 Copy quote

• You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.

  George Orwell

  Empty, Hollow

  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.1351, Penguin UK

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• In this country, intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face ... Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and incovenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban ... At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of iedas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question.

  George Orwell

  Country, Dark, Thinking

  9 Copy quote

• For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

  George Orwell

  Running, Ignorance, Thinking

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.282, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  39 Copy quote

• England is the most class-ridden country under the sun. It is a land of snobbery and privilege, ruled largely by the old and silly.

  George Orwell

  Country, Silly, Land

  George Orwell (2009). “Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays”, p.124, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• Good prose should be transparent, like a window pane.

  George Orwell

  Writing, Window Panes, Should

  57 Copy quote

• One defeats a fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.

  George Orwell

  Lonely, Being Sad, Atheism

  George Orwell, Peter Davison (2013). “George Orwell: A Life in Letters”, p.448, W. W. Norton & Company

  8 Copy quote

• War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

  George Orwell

  War, Evil, Literature

  8 Copy quote

• Myths which are believed in tend to become true.

  George Orwell

  Truth, Political, Belief

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

  83 Copy quote

• Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist

  George Orwell

  Inspirational, Fascists, Pacifism

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

  27 Copy quote

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