George Orwell
Quotes

[Orwell would have enjoyed the irony of David Aaronovitch winning the Orwell Prize in 2001, similar to Kissinger winning the Nobel Peace Prize.  Straight from the Ministry of Truth.]

See: Ministry of Truth Mind Control   ThoughtCrimes Archive

[1986] Orwell's 1984: Was Orwell Right? by John Bennett

Read George Orwell's, 1984 online

[1946] Politics and the English Language by George Orwell

Quotes re Orwell

Quotes by Orwell
Goodsex is any form of sex considered acceptable by the Party; specifically, this refers only to sex for the exclusive purpose of providing new children for the Party. All other forms of sex are considered sexcrime.

"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."

"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, 1938

George Orwell (Eric Blair) writes in his essay “Notes on Nationalism” (published in Polemic, No. 1, October 1945):
Indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing-off of one part of the world from another, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening. There can often be a genuine doubt about the most enormous events. For example, it is impossible to calculate within millions, perhaps even tens of millions, the number of deaths caused by the present war. The calamities that are constantly being reported – battles, massacres, famines, revolutions – tend to inspire in the average person a feeling of unreality. One has no way of verifying the facts, one is not even fully certain that they have happened, and one is always presented with totally different interpretations from different sources. What were the rights and wrongs of the Warsaw rising of August 1944? Is it true about the German gas ovens in Poland? Who was really to blame for the Bengal famine? Probably the truth is discoverable, but the facts will be so dishonestly set forth in almost any newspaper that the ordinary reader can be forgiven either for swallowing lies or failing to form an opinion.

"In vast laboratories in the Ministry of Peace, and in experimental stations, teams of experts are indefatigably at work searching for new and deadlier gases; or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents; or for breeds of disease germs immunised against all possible antibodies."----George Orwell - 1984

Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness.-----George Orwell (See: Assassinations, Persecuted doctors.)

The process 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, 1984 (see)

In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, "just to keep the people frightened." -- George Orwell, 1984

We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.----George Orwell

They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening.----George Orwell

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.---George Orwell (eg: Iraq, Depleted Uranium.)

 He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him. ---George Orwell

"All propaganda is a lie even when its telling the truth."--G Orwell (see)

"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 ... A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors... Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same."---George Orwell, 1984

"Who controls the past controls the future.  Who controls the present controls the past."--George Orwell (O'Brien in 1984)  [For a good example of controlling the past, see Vaccine "Lymph"]

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

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

"Newspeak was the official language ... The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits ... but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought should be literally unthinkable." Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell.  (Taken from Martin Walker article)

Double think means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously and accepting both of them. The party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered, therefore he knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of DOUBLE THINK, he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated."----Orwell

George Orwell once pointed out that the first job of a leader is to create an enemy that could strike fear into the hearts of the electorate. (see: False flag.)

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. --George Orwell

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them. George Orwell (see: Vaccination.)

On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time.

While the Pobble was in the water some unidentified creatures came and ate his toes off, and when he got home his aunt remarked: It's a fact the whole world knows, That Pobbles are happier without their toes, which is funny because it has a meaning, and one might even say a political significance. For the whole theory of authoritarian government is summed up in the statement that Pobbles are happier without their toes.

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.

Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

“It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.” (see: Eye.)

"In George Orwell's 1984 one of EngSoc's three "truths" was "Ignorance Is Strength." Have you ever noticed how ignorant people have a great deal of strength in their convictions? Not being able to think is, at least subconsciously, terrifying. Unable to arrive at ideas and understandings on one's own, every idea must be held onto like a life preserver in the sea beside a sinking ship. Every idea is as important as every other idea because there is no mechanism to judge between them.  "Authority" (the Church-School-State Establishment) is strengthened by ignorance as well. The ignorant must rely on Authority for opinions. This keeps Authority on top. The "conspiracy" has a vested interest in maintaining this druggie-like dependence on Authority. It is a very short "hokey-pokey" little step from authoritarianism to totalitarianism."----Jerry E. Smith

"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, Homage to Catalonia, 1938

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

[The Prisoner TV series] "We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instance of death we cannot permit any deviation . . . we make the brain perfect before we blow it out."

"We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent there will be no need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."

"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

"Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves."