History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. George Orwell More Quotes by George Orwell More Quotes From George Orwell Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. George Orwell oceanialiteraturewar In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science.' The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. George Orwell achievementprinciplespast Bad writers are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones. George Orwell notiongreeklatin But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet --! George Orwell horsepartymorning A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. 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 spurting out ink. 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. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. George Orwell reallatinlying You are a slow learner, Winston." "How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four." "Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane. George Orwell eyetryingtwo When I joined the militia I had promised myself to kill one Fascist - after all, if each of us killed one they would soon be extinct. George Orwell militiafascistsrevolutionary Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. The wider course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move, the grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness. George Orwell menmovingthinking All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth. George Orwell propagandatelling-the-truthlying Myths which are believed in tend to become true. George Orwell politicalbelieftruth ...in the negative part of Professor's Hayek's thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often - at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough - that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of. George Orwell politicsgivingnegative If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves. George Orwell worst-enemyeditorscountry The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existance, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. George Orwell partymemoriespast You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Paty, which is collective and immortal. George Orwell mistakebelievereality The secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own infallibility with a power to learn from past mistakes. George Orwell secretmistakepast Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion, and such truisms as that a machine-gun is still a machine-gun even when a "good" man is squeezing the trigger have turned into heresies which it is actually becoming dangerous to utter. George Orwell bullygunmen As soon as you think of fishing you think of things that don't belong to the modern world. The very idea of sitting all day under a willow tree beside a quiet pool - and being able to find a quiet pool to sit beside- belongs to a time before the war, before radio, before aeroplanes, before Hitler. George Orwell lakeswarthinking The real test of character is how you treat someone who has no possibility of doing you any good. George Orwell doing-yourealcharacter If there is hope, it lies in the proles. George Orwell 1984-moviethere-is-hopelying Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. George Orwell difficultstupidity
