1,535 Quotes by George Orwell

Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose.

If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?

I do not think the Socialist need make any sacrifice of essentials, but certainly he will have to make a great sacrifice of externals. It would help enormously, for instance, if the smell of crankishness which still clings to the Socialist movement could be dispelled. If only the sandals and the pistachio-coloured shirts could be put in a pile and burnt, and every vegetarian, teetotaller and creeping Jesus sent home to Welwyn Garden City to do his yoga exercises quietly!

A bird’s wing, comrades,” he said, “is an organ of propulsion and not of manipulation. It should therefore be regarded as a leg.

I’m fat, but I’m thin inside. Has it ever struck you that there’s a thin man inside every fat man, just as they say there’s a statue inside every block of stone?

There is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language.

Some hams hanging in the kitchen were taken out for burial.

In moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy but always against one’s own body.

Perhaps “friend” was not exactly the right word. You did not have friends nowadays, you had comrades; but there were some comrades whose society was pleasanter than that of others.