George Orwell Quotes

"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

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

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

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

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

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."

"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."

"Good prose is like a windowpane."

"The best books... are those that tell you what you know already."

"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing."

"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."

"Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one."

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

"Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull."

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness."

"Sanity is not statistical."

"Every joke is a tiny revolution."

"One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool."

"Big Brother is watching you."

"In the face of pain there are no heroes."

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

"We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it."

"Four legs good, two legs bad."

"Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else."

"The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection."

"Myths which are believed in tend to become true."

"A people without a history is like a person without a memory."

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity."

"It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench."

"Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."