1,535 Quotes by George Orwell

The organized lying practiced by totalitarian states is not, as is sometimes claimed, a temporary expedient of the same nature as military deception. It is something integral to totalitarianism, something that would still continue even if concentration camps and secret police forces had ceased to be necessary.

A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened.

THERE'S A KIND OF PEACEFULNESS IN THE NAMES OF ENGLISH COARSE FISH. ROACH, RUDD, DACE, BLEAK, BARBEL, BREAM, GUDGEON, PIKE, CHUB, CARP, TENCH. THEY'RE SOLID KIND OF NAMES. THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THEM UP HADN'T HEARD OF MACHINE-GUNS, THEY DIDN'T LIVE IN TERROR OF THE SACK OR SPENDING THEIR TIME EATING ASPIRINS, GOING TO THE PICTURES, AND WONDERING HOW TO KEEP OUT OF THE CONCENTRATION CAMP.

Surely, comrades, you don't want Jones back?

Dickens seems to have succeeded in attacking everybody and antagonizing nobody.

Winston was gelatinous with fatigue.

A man may take to drink because he feels himself a failure, but then fail all the more completely because he drinks.

We sleep peaceably in our beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf"--Opening to "My Father's Son," attributed to George Orwell

The fact is that every war suffers a kind of progressive degradation with every month that it continues, because such things as individual liberty and a truthful press are simply not compatible with military efficiency.