1,535 Quotes by George Orwell

When I joined the militia I had promised myself to kill one Fascist – after all, if each of us killed one they would soon be extinct.

It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.

Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse – hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.

I am afraid of death. You are young, so presumably you’re more afraid of it than I am. Obviously we shall put if off as long as we can. But it makes very little difference. So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing.

By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me. They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are only ‘doing their duty’

The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers’ boots formed the background to Goldstein’s bleating voice.

Truth becomes untruth if uttered by your enemy.

We may be together for another six months – a year – there’s no knowing. At the end we’re certain to be apart. Do you realize how utterly alone we shall be?