George Orwell Quotes-A History Talks Vol 1-Issue 13

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), known by his pen name George Orwell

 

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

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

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

 Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is possible that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never had much temptation to be human beings.

 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.

 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.

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

 The great enemy of clear language is insincerity

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

 For a creative writer possession of the truth is less important than emotional sincerity.

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

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

 The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

 An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.

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

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

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

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

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

 Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

 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.

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

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

 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.

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
― Politics and the English Language

Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations

The educated man pictures a horde of submen, wanting only a day's liberty to loot his house, burn his books, and set him to work minding a machine or sweeping out a lavatory. 'Anything,' he thinks, 'any injustice, sooner than let that mob loose.' He does not see that since there is no difference between the mass of rich and poor, there is no question of setting the mob loose. The mob is in fact loose now, and--in the shape of rich men--is using its power to set up enormous treadmills of boredom, such as 'smart' hotels.

― Down and Out in Paris and London

 

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.
― Why I Write