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George Orwell
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If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?
- George Orwell
#Cannot
#Free
#Politics
#Right
#Yourself
A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.
- George Orwell
#Man
#Situation
#Still
#Triumph
#Virtue
Serious sport is war minus the shooting.
- George Orwell
#Minus
#Serious
#Shooting
#Sport
#War
Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feeling whatever.
- George Orwell
#Feeling
#Job
#Spontaneous
#Whatever
There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.
- George Orwell
#Always
#Difference
#More
#Progress
#War
For a creative writer possession of the 'truth' is less important than emotional sincerity.
- George Orwell
#Important
#Sincerity
#Truth Is
#Truth
Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child's eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below.
- George Orwell
#Best
#Eyes
#Looking
#Reason
#Seen
Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
- George Orwell
#Act
#Against
#Maniac
#Self-Defense
#War
Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.
- George Orwell
#Achieve
#Never
#People
#Temptation
#Want
The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun.
- George Orwell
#Earth
#Police
#Streaming
#Sun
#Through
Dickens is one of those authors who are well worth stealing.
- George Orwell
#Stealing
#Those
#Well
#Who
#Worth
War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent.
- George Orwell
#Comfortable
#Intelligent
#Make
#War
#Way
In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.
- George Orwell
#Our
#Political
#Speech
#Time
#Writing
We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose.
- George Orwell
#Class
#Lose
#Middle Class
#Nothing
#Will
Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.
- George Orwell
#Never
#People
#Responsibility
#Sense
When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.
- George Orwell
#Heroic
#Human Beings
#Human
#Pinch
The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature.
- George Orwell
#Above
#Always
#Atmosphere
#Literature
It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.
- George Orwell
#Country
#Democracy
#Down
#Fear
#Meaning
No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.
- George Orwell
#Back
#Look
#Say
#Truth
#Unhappy
Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.
- George Orwell
#Happens
#Illusion
#Progress
#Slow
One cannot really be a Catholic and grown up.
- George Orwell
#Cannot
#Catholic
#Grown
#Really
#Up
One can love a child, perhaps, more deeply than one can love another adult, but it is rash to assume that the child feels any love in return.
- George Orwell
#Adult
#Child
#Love
#More
#Return
As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.
- George Orwell
#Civilized
#Flying
#Human
#Me
#Trying
Joyce is a poet and also an elephantine pedant.
- George Orwell
#Also
#Joyce
#Poet
A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.
- George Orwell
#Dirty
#Joke
#Mental
#Rebellion
#Sort
Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.
- George Orwell
#Adult
#Age
#Feelings
#True
#Your
Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie... a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.
- George Orwell
#Dirty
#Funny
#Pie
#Rebellion
#Whatever
The intellectual is different from the ordinary man, but only in certain sections of his personality, and even then not all the time.
- George Orwell
#Intellectual
#Man
#Personality
#Time
Four legs good, two legs bad.
- George Orwell
#Bad
#Four
#Good
#Legs
#Two
The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.
- George Orwell
#Cannot
#Catholic
#Intelligent
#Opponent
To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.
- George Orwell
#Human Being
#Love
#Mean
#Nothing
#People
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.
- George Orwell
#Facts
#Future
#Past
#Political
#Thinking
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.
- George Orwell
#Act
#Destruction
#Human
#Labor
#War
Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.
- George Orwell
#Always
#Guilty
#Innocent
#Saints
#Until
He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.
- George Orwell
#Atheist
#Dislike
#God
#He
#Personally
Good writing is like a windowpane.
- George Orwell
#Good Writing
#Good
#Like
#Writing
It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.
- George Orwell
#Good
#Nothing
#Own
#Personality
#True
To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.
- George Orwell
#Civilization
#Doubt
#Feel
#Walk
#War
Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.
- George Orwell
#Always
#Human
#Practice
#Society
#Will
No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.
- George Orwell
#Equality
#Manners
#Revolution
#Wealth
Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.
- George Orwell
#Chaos
#Improvement
#Language
#Political
Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.
- George Orwell
#Balance
#Fun
#Life
#People
#Suffering
A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.
- George Orwell
#Come
#Control
#Family
#Members
#Wrong
I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment.
- George Orwell
#Doubt
#Education
#Punishment
#Without
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.
- George Orwell
#Enough
#Fast
#Man
#Milk
#Rabbits
The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.
- George Orwell
#Aim
#Being
#Human Being
#Human
#Joke
Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.
- George Orwell
#Evil
#Good And Evil
#Good
#Heaven
#Hell
War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.
- George Orwell
#Evil
#Lesser
#Often
#War
Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.
- George Orwell
#Early
#Ever
#Life
#Newspaper
#Noticed
We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.
- George Orwell
#Find
#Food
#Long
#May
#Weapon
At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.
- George Orwell
#Deserves
#Everyone
#Face
#Fifty
#He
Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.
- George Orwell
#Battle
#Battles
#Lost
#Opening
#Wars
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
- George Orwell
#Beliefs
#Means
#Mind
#Power
#Two
Big Brother is watching you.
- George Orwell
#Big Brother
#Big
#Brother
#Watching
#You
Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.
- George Orwell
#Always
#Moment
#Seem
#Will
#Winning
War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
- George Orwell
#Country
#Happens
#Profit
#Think
#War
I'm fat, but I'm thin inside... there's a thin man inside every fat man.
- George Orwell
#Every
#Fat Man
#Fat
#Inside
#Man
Liberal: a power worshipper without power.
- George Orwell
#Liberal
#Power
#Without
#Worshipper
Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.
- George Orwell
#Creation
#Language
#Ought
#Workers
War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.
- George Orwell
#Dead
#Good Human
#Good
#Human Being
#Human
#War
Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.
- George Orwell
#Advertising
#Bucket
#Inside
#Stick
Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.
- George Orwell
#Always
#Hatred
#Patriotism
#Stronger
On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.
- George Orwell
#Good
#Human
#Time
#Want
#Whole
Myths which are believed in tend to become true.
- George Orwell
#Become
#Myths
#Tend
#True
#Which
Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.
- George Orwell
#Hunger
#Nationalism
#Power
#Tempered
All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
- George Orwell
#Fighting
#Hatred
#People
#Screaming
#Who
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
- George Orwell
#Corrupt
#Corrupts
#Language
#Thought
The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.
- George Orwell
#Best
#Books
#Know
#Tell
#Those
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
- George Orwell
#About
#Capacity
#He
#Own
#Side
As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.
- George Orwell
#Christian
#Religion
#Socialism
#Worst
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.
- George Orwell
#Duty
#Intelligence
#Intelligent
#Men
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.
- George Orwell
#Dictatorship
#Makes
#Order
#Revolution
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
- George Orwell
#Four
#Freedom
#Make
#Say
#Two
So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot.
- George Orwell
#Fire
#Hot
#Know
#Left-Wing
#People
To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.
- George Orwell
#Dirty
#Fight
#Often
#Survive
#Yourself
The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.
- George Orwell
#Being Human
#Essence
#Human
#Perfection
In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.
- George Orwell
#Age
#Folly
#Hatred
#Political
#Politics
Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
- George Orwell
#Dictatorship
#End
#Power
#Revolution
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
- George Orwell
#Anything
#Liberty
#People
#Right
#Want
What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?
- George Orwell
#Fair
#Intelligent
#More
#Your
#Yourself
Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.
- George Orwell
#Duty
#First
#Intelligent
#Men
#Sometimes
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
- George Orwell
#Ending
#Lose
#Quickest Way
#War
#Way
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
- George Orwell
#Enemy
#Great
#Language
#Long
#Words
Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
- George Orwell
#Appearance
#Language
#Political
#Wind
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
- George Orwell
#Freedom
#Ignorance
#Peace
#Strength
#War
Those who 'abjure' violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.
- George Orwell
#Because
#Only
#Others
#Violence
#Who
We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.
- George Orwell
#Men
#Night
#Safe
#Sleep
#Violence
Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
- George Orwell
#Always
#Been
#Had
#Therefore
#War
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.
- George Orwell
#History
#Truth Is
#Truth
#Will
#World
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.
- George Orwell
#Jealousy
#Rules
#Sports
#War
#Words
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
- George Orwell
#Men
#Night
#Peace
#People
#Sleep
Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.
- George Orwell
#Development
#Good
#Men
#Only
#Them
Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.
- George Orwell
#Be Happy
#Happiness
#Happy
#Life
#Men
There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
- George Orwell
#Believe
#Ideas
#Intelligence
#Person
Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
- George Orwell
#Generation
#Imagination
#Intelligent
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
- George Orwell
#Face
#Future
#Imagination
#Vision
#Want
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
- George Orwell
#Controls
#Future
#Past
#Present
#Who
Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
- George Orwell
#Freedom
#People
#Right
#Tell
#Want
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
- George Orwell
#Animals
#Equal
#Equality
#More
#Others
Happiness can exist only in acceptance.
- George Orwell
#Acceptance
#Exist
#Happiness
#Only
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