George Orwell: Trending quotes

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George Orwell: 946 quotes1090 likes

“Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of learning to think as they thought.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and Out in Paris and London

“He drove his mind into the abyss where poetry is written.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying

“All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.”

George Orwell Why I Write

"Politics and the English Language" (1946)
Source: Why I Write
Context: All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.

“The urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word-- Man”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Source: Animal Farm

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that can be given a name.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever.”

George Orwell book 1984

Variant: If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.
Source: 1984

“The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and such circumstances, what would you do?’, whereas the opposition is not obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions.”

George Orwell

“When I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Source: Homage to Catalonia (1938)
Context: I have no particular love for the idealised "worker" as he appears in the bourgeois Communist's mind, but when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on.

“At normal times it is deeply dishonest. All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.”

George Orwell Why I Write

"The Lion and the Unicorn" (1941)
Source: Why I Write
Context: Is the English press honest or dishonest? At normal times it is deeply dishonest. All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news. Yet I do not suppose there is one paper in England that can be straightforwardly bribed with hard cash. In the France of the Third Republic all but a very few of the newspapers could notoriously be bought over the counter like so many pounds of cheese.

“He would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies.”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Source: Animal Farm

“Freedom of the Press,
if it means anything at all,
means the freedom
to criticize and oppose”

George Orwell

“To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others”

George Orwell

“This life we live nowadays! It's not life, it's stagnation, death-in-life. Look at all these bloody houses, and the meaningless people inside them! Sometimes I think we're all corpses. Just rotting upright.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 5

“they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.”

George Orwell book Animal Farm