George Orwell Quotes

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood. The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness. In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act. On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time. Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. In the face of pain there are no heroes. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. If you can feel that staying human is worthwhile, even when it can’t have any result whatever, you’ve beaten them. The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices. Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane. The distinguishing mark of man is the hand, the instrument with which he does all his mischief. Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it. Big Brother is watching you. Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness. There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them. If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them. 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. A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims... but accomplices. During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. The greatest enemy of clear language is insincerity. To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

George Orwell

1903 - 1950