Ignorance In 1984 Quotes

• In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane.

  George Orwell

  Intelligent, Understanding, Delusion

  George Orwell (1961). “1984”

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• From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is.

  George Orwell

  Dying, Rebel, Generations

  George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.454, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

  George Orwell

  Strength, Peace, Freedom

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 1 (1949)

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• Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

  George Orwell

  Mean, Thinking, Orthodoxy

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.152, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

  George Orwell

  Truth, Freedom, Knowledge

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• 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

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• Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

  George Orwell

  Mean, Two, Mind

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 2, ch. 9 (1949)

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• In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

  George Orwell

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Wisdom

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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 more intelligent, the less sane

  George Orwell

  Intelligent, Sane

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

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• What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked upon as a matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual liberty becasue they have no intellect.

  George Orwell

  Intellectual, Liberty, Matter

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• If human equality is to be forever averted -- if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently -- then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.

  George Orwell

  Forever, Insanity, Nineteen

  George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.165, Arcturus Publishing

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• 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

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• The secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own infallibility with a power to learn from past mistakes.

  George Orwell

  Mistake, Past, Secret

  George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.164, Arcturus Publishing

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• The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon.

  George Orwell

  Memories, Past, Agree Upon

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.305, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental , nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink

  George Orwell

  War, Lying, Exercise

  George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.467, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 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

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• ...the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.

  George Orwell

  War, Nineteen, Position

  George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.144, Arcturus Publishing

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• The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim-for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives -is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.

  George Orwell

  Men, Abiding, Groups

  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.1302, Penguin UK

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• The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existance, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it.

  George Orwell

  Memories, Party, Past

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.305, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The process [of mass-media deception] has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies all this is indispensably necessary.

  George Orwell

  Truth, Lying, Believe

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• The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.

  George Orwell

  Father, Son, Persistence

  "1984".

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• He who controls the past controls the future.

  Laozi

  Future, Past, Political Language

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• And in the general hardening of outlook that set in ... practices which had been long abandoned ... -- imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations -- not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.

  George Orwell

  War, Practice, Long

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

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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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