George Orwell (1903-1950)

Quotes

• Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

• Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

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

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

• At age 50, every man has the face he deserves.

• Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

• Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

• The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

• We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

• 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.

• War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.

• Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

• Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me.'"

• Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act.

• Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words: it is war minus the shooting.

• At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.

• If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

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

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

• If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face -- forever.