Quotes by George Orwell

About George Orwell:

Eric Arthur Blair is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.
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With its grace and carelessness, it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though [all] could be swept into a nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm.

George Orwell

To die hating them, that was freedom.

George Orwell

We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.

George Orwell

For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?

George Orwell

It struck him as curious that you could create dead men but not living ones

George Orwell

Tragedy, he precieved, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there were still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason.

George Orwell

But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.

George Orwell

And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.

George Orwell

...for everyone there is something unendurable - something that cannot be contemplated. Courage and cowardice are not involved. If you are falling from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope. If you have come up from deep water it is not cow...

George Orwell

...In this place you could not feel anything, except pain and foreknowledge of pain.

George Orwell

Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold.

George Orwell

La libertad es poder decir libremente que dos y dos son cuatro. Si se concede esto, todo lo demás vendrá por sus pasos contados.

George Orwell

Le désir était un crime de la pensée.

George Orwell

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

George Orwell

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

George Orwell

In the past the need for a hierarchal form of society has been the doctrine specifically of the High. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and the priests, lawyers and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally been soften...

George Orwell

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. Histo...

George Orwell

Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist? O'Brien: Of course he exists. Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me? O'Brien: You do not exist.

George Orwell

Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one's head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark−haired girl behind him. Vivid, beautiful hallucinat...

George Orwell

If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righ...

George Orwell

And after that, you don't feel the same toward the other person any longer.

George Orwell

Author Bio

  • NameGeorge Orwell
  • DescriptionEnglish author and journalist
  • AliasesEric Arthur Blair; Eric Blair; John Freeman
  • BornJune 25, 1903
  • DiedJanuary 21, 1950
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWar Correspondent; Poet; Essayist; Journalist; Novelist; Literary Critic; Autobiographer; Bookseller
  • WorksThe Road To Wigan Pier; Homage To Catalonia; Animal Farm; Nineteen Eighty-Four; Burmese Days; Coming Up For Air; Keep The Aspidistra Flying; A Clergyman's Daughter; Down And Out In Paris And London; Politics And The English Language; The Lion And The Unicorn: Socialism And The English Genius; Why I Write
  • AwardsPrometheus Award - Hall Of Fame