George Orwell Quotes

644 quotes in 6332 categories

• The belly comes before the soul.
• It is brought home to you...that it is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior.
• We are not retreating, we are advancing in another direction. We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to…
• International football is the continuation of war by other means.
• I loathed the game, and since I could see no pleasure or usefulness in it, it was very difficult for me to show courage at…
• The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.
• The war is waged against its own subjects and its object is not the victory...but to keep the very structure of society intact.
• The Puritanical nonsense of excluding children and therefore to some extent women from pubs has turned these places into mere boozing shops instead of the…
• "A minority of one"... the definition of insanity.
• To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when time comes. History is full…
• To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulne­ss while telling carefully constructe­d lies, to hold simultaneo­usly two opinions which cancelled out,…
• All that was required of them (i.e. the brain-washed masses) was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make…
• One of the effects of a safe and civilized life is an immense over sensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting.
• Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip.
• The party is not concerned with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, providing that the hierarchical structure always remains the same.
• Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing.
• Rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon - so long as there…
• The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him…
• Weakness is strength.
• A peace that is truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war.

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