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85 George Orwell Quotes About Truth, Politics and Power
By Morgan McMurrin,
19 days ago
If you’re not familiar with George Orwell, he was a literary rebel with a cause! Born Eric Arthur Blair, he wasn't just about writing; he was all about shaking things up. He used his typewriter to call out social injustice and inequality as well as the growing influence of the mass media and surveillance technologies that existed during his lifetime—there are plenty of famous George Orwell quotes you may recognize even today.
Orwell is perhaps most recognized for penning the novel 1984 , which was about a society ruled by constant surveillance and propaganda under a one-party regime. Years later, his book even went on to inspire the popular reality show Big Brother . Another popular book Orwell wrote was called Animal Farm , which told the story of farmyard critters who turned into political pundits.
Orwell was never shy to speak his mind. In fact, he was the complete opposite. Because of this, even though his work was written decades ago, his views still continue to resonate with people today due to their messages critiquing power and oppression.
To find out more about him, keep reading. We rounded up 85 quotes from George Orwell, below.
23. “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
24. “Gambling, beer and football filled the horizons of their minds.”
25. “Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”
26. “All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.”
27. “Every life viewed from the inside is a series of defeats.”
28. “Politics is the choice between the lesser of two evils.”
29. “Sanity is not statistical.”
30. “At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.”
31. “Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.”
32. “The heresy of heresies was common sense.”
33. “Weakness is strength.”
34. “To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.”
35. “If you want to know who rules over you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.”
36. “Literature is doomed if liberty of thought perishes.”
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37. “Beauty is meaningless until it is shared.”
38. “Manchester is the belly and guts of the nation.”
39. “You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”
40. “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
41. “Rich people are poor people with money.”
42. “The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.”
43. “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.”
44. “Good prose should be transparent, like a window pane.”
45. “England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.” “England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.”
46. “The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon.”
47. “The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.”
48. “Big Brother is watching you.”
49. “It is only when you meet someone of a different culture from yourself that you begin to realize what your own beliefs really are.”
50. “Either we all live in a decent world, or nobody does.”
51. “Right thinking will be rewarded, wrong thinking punished.”
52. “Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”
53. “In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane.”
54. “To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay.”
55. “Apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99 percent of the population exist.”
56. “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”
57. “It’s frightful that people who are so ignorant have so much influence.”
58. “Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey.”
59. “However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing.”
60. “Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.”
61. “It is a mysterious thing, the loss of faith – as mysterious as faith itself.”
62. “War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.”
63. “Power is not a means; it is an end.”
64. “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”
65. “Never use a long word where a short one will do.”
66. “Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.”
67. “Four legs good, two legs bad.”
68. “Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”
69. “Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.”
70. “We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.”
71. “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
72. “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
73. “All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers.”
74. “Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain.”
75. “Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist.”
76. “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
77. “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
78. “I understand HOW. I do not understand WHY.”
79. “Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me.”
80. “All human relationships must be purchased with money.”
81. “The war is not meant to be won; it is meant to be continuous.”
82. “Free speech is my right to say what you don’t want to hear.”
83. “It’s not so much staying alive, it’s staying human that’s important. What counts is that we don’t betray each other.”
84. “All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.”
85. “The people will believe what the media tells them they believe.”
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