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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from w...

George Orwell

TWO AND TWO MAKES FIVE

George Orwell

Processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxwork displays, film shows, telescreen programs all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs faked.

George Orwell

If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.

George Orwell

For the first time he perceived that 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 could b...

George Orwell

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

Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.

George Orwell

He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear.

George Orwell

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....

George Orwell

The words kept coming back to him, statement of a mystical truth and a palpable absurdity.

George Orwell

Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.

George Orwell

The tank, the submarine, the torpedo, the machine-gun, even the rifle and the hand grenade are still in use.

George Orwell

...the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.

George Orwell

War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor ...

George Orwell

The actual writing would be easy. All he had to do was to transfer to paper the interminable restless monologue that had been running inside his head, literally for years.

George Orwell

He was conscious of nothing except the blankness of the page in front of him, the itching of the skin above his ankle, the blaring of the music, and a slight booziness caused by the gin.

George Orwell

It is not certain whether the effects of totalitarianism upon verse need be so deadly as its effects on prose. There is a whole series of converging reasons why it is somewhat easier for a poet than a prose writer to feel at home in an authoritarian ...

George Orwell

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

George Orwell

If there really is such a thing as turning in one's grave, Shakespeare must get a lot of exercise.

George Orwell

Four legs good, two legs bad.

George Orwell

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

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