69 Quotes About Orwell

But what [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that 'views' do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think; and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.

[..] the great modern commandment - the eleventh commandment which has wiped out all the others: 'Thou shalt not lose thy job.

It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable, the wrongness of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. [...] He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less.

It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt.

Un governo che manda al fronte dei quindicenni, con fucili vecchi di quarant'anni, e tiene in retrovia gli uomini piú robusti e le armi piú nuove, ha evidentemente piú paura della rivoluzione che dei fascisti.

Quien con­tro­la el pa­sa­do —decía la con­sig­na del Par­ti­do— con­tro­la el fu­tu­ro. Quien con­tro­la el pre­sen­te con­tro­la el pa­sa­do

El pa­sa­do había sido bo­rra­do, se había ol­vi­da­do que había sido bo­rra­do y de ese modo la men­ti­ra se con­ver­tía en ver­dad

Formar parte de la minoría, aunque fuese una minoría de uno solo, no te convertía en loco. Había la verdad y la mentira, y aferrarse a la verdad, aunque fuese en contra del mundo entero, no era sinónimo de estar loco.

Nunca, por nada en el mundo, podía uno desear que su dolor aumentara. Del dolor solo puede desearse una cosa: que cese. No hay nada peor que el dolor físico. Ante el dolor no hay héroes.