By preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except the steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship. - George Orwell
A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. - George Orwell
Looking at the whole world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. - George Orwell
We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. - George Orwell
The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. - George Orwell
It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it. - George Orwell
It appears to me that one defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence. - George Orwell
People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. - George Orwell
A world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet. - George Orwell
Think of life as it really is, think of the details of life; and then think that there is no meaning in it, no purpose, no goal except the grave. Surely only fools or self-deceivers, or those whose lives are exceptionally fortunate, can face that thought without flinching. - George Orwell
The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits atrocities but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future. - George Orwell
The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later, a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on the battlefield. - George Orwell
He is a slave with a semblance of liberty which is worse than the most cruel slavery. - George Orwell
No one can get up much enthusiasm for a Government which puts you in jail if you open your mouth - George Orwell
Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes. - George Orwell
In every one of those little stucco boxes, there s some poor bastard who' s never free except when he's fast asleep and dreaming - George Orwell
The fallacy is to believe that under a dictatorial government you can be free inside. - George Orwell
Will the man in the street ever feel that freedom of the mind is as important and as much in need of being defended as his daily bread? - George Orwell
What is needed is the right to print what one believes to be true, without having to fear bullying or blackmail from any side. - George Orwell
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. - George Orwell
Double-think means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. - George Orwell
