Archive for category: George Orwell

George Orwell | Narrative Essays

“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind. War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it. Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. (On the manipulation of language for political ends.) We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.”

George Orwell

George Orwell | Who controls the past controls the future

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past"

George Orwell

George Orwell | abolition of private property

"After the revolutionary period of the fifties and sixties, society regrouped itself, as always, into High, Middle, and Low. But the new High group, unlike all its forerunners, did not act upon instinct but knew what was needed to safeguard its position. It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called ’abolition of private property’ which took place in the middle years of the century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before: but with this difference, that the new owners were a group instead of a mass of individuals. Individually, no member of the Party owns anything, except petty personal belongings. Collectively, the Party owns everything in Oceania, because it controls everything, and disposes of the products as it thinks fit."

George Orwell | 1984

George Orwell | Real power is achieved

"Real power is achieved when the ruling class controls the material essentials of life, granting and withholding them from the masses as if they were privileges."

George Orwell

George Orwell | Until they become conscious

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

George Orwell

George Orwell | If you want a picture of the future

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever."

George Orwell

George Orwell | If you can feel that staying human is worth while

"If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them."

George Orwell

Georg Orwell | What counts is that we don’t betray each other

"It’s not so much staying alive, it’s staying human that’s important. What counts is that we don’t betray each other."

Georg Orwell

George Orwell | horrible features of war

"One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting."

George Orwell

George Orwell | The most effective way to destroy people

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."

George Orwell

George Orwell | A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing

"At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to state this or that or the other, but it is "not done"… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals."

George Orwell

George Orwell | These people don’t see that

"These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you."

George Orwell

George Orwell | To keep them in control was not difficult

"Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult."

George Orwell, 1984

George Orwell | everything else is public relations

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations."

George Orwell

George Orwell | The further a society moves away from the truth

"The further a society moves away from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it."

George Orwell

George Orwell | Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

George Orwell

George Orwell | The really frightening thing about totalitarianism

"The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future."

George Orwell

George Orwell | A people that elect corrupt politicians

"A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims... but accomplices..."

George Orwell