All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. George Orwell More Quotes by George Orwell More Quotes From George Orwell What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked upon as a matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual liberty becasue they have no intellect. George Orwell libertyintellectualmatter One of the effects of a safe and civilized life is an immense over sensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting. George Orwell emotionsafelife-is For weeks past he had been making ready for this moment, and it had never crossed his mind that anything would be needed except courage. The actual writing would be easy. All he had to do was to transfer to paper the interminable restless monologue that had been running inside his head, literally for years. George Orwell writingrunningpast To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself. George Orwell survivalfightingdirty We are in a strange period of history in which a revolutionary has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary. George Orwell patriotstrangerevolutionary A thing which I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time, is that I have never in my life planted a walnut. Nobody does plant them nowadays-when you see a walnut it is almost invariably an old tree. If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren? George Orwell grandchildrenregrettree If you have no money, men won't care for you, women won't love you; won't, that is, care for you or love you the last little bit that matters. George Orwell carelove-youmen Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism as I understand it. George Orwell serious-workdemocratic-socialismlines In this country, intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face ... Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and incovenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban ... At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of iedas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. George Orwell darkcountrythinking Most people approve of capital punishment, but most people wouldn't do the hangman's job. George Orwell punishmentjobspeople It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you. George Orwell wantpeoplelooks So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern...Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. George Orwell homefootballchildren 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 badassintelligentimagination Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own unorthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened. George Orwell frightenedwritingpeople Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now? George Orwell meanyearsthinking Does Big Brother exist?" "Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party." "Does he exist in the same way as I exist?" "You do not exist. George Orwell partybrotherdoe Man serves the interests of no creature except himself. George Orwell interestanimalmen The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. George Orwell patrioticdemocracyjustice The Puritanical nonsense of excluding children and therefore to some extent women from pubs has turned these places into mere boozing shops instead of the family gathering places that they ought to be. George Orwell gatheringbeerchildren The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. George Orwell animalpigsmen
