1,535 Quotes by George Orwell

No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

A machine evolves by becoming more efficient, that is, more foolproof; hence the objective of mechanical progress is a foolproof world – which may or may not mean a world inhabited by fools.

Those who ‘abjure’ violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.

It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply it’s bareness, it’s dinginess, it’s listlessness.

The fallacy is to believe that under a dictatorial government you can be free inside.

The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous.

Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks the whip. But the really well-trained dog is the one that turns somersaults when there is no whip-.

His answer to every problem, every setback was “I will work harder!” – which he had adopted as his personal motto.

People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has a man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases? ‘Natural’ death, almost by defintion, means something slow, smelly and painful.