If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, "I'm a free man in here" - he tapped his forehead - "and you're all right. George Orwell More Quotes by George Orwell More Quotes From George Orwell But what is work and what is not work? Is it work to dig, to carpenter, to plant trees, to fell trees, to ride, to fish, to hunt, to feed chickens, to play the piano, to take photographs, to build a house, to cook, to sew, to trim hats, to mend motor bicycles? All of these things are work to somebody, and all of them are play to somebody. There are in fact very few activities which cannot be classed either as work or play according as you choose to regard them. George Orwell play work happiness Hunger reduces one to an utterly spineless, brainless condition, more like the after-effects of influenza than anything else. It is as though all one's blood had been pumped out and lukewarm water substituted. George Orwell hunger water blood Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere. George Orwell triumph ifs believe Man is the only creature that consumes without producing George Orwell eggs animal men The Seven Commandments: Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. No animal shall wear clothes. No animal shall sleep in a bed. No animal shall drink alcohol. No animal shall kill any other animal. All animals are equal. George Orwell sleep wings animal High sentiments always win in the end. The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic. George Orwell leadership motivational inspirational The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had become a physical necessity. George Orwell smell hair romantic Men use up their lives in heart-breaking political struggles, or get themselves killed in civil wars, or tortured in the secret prisons of the Gestapo, not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another. George Orwell struggle heart war Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves. George Orwell laughter joy integrity All men are enemies. All animals are comrades George Orwell animal men enemy Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers. George Orwell joints communication language 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 adults love children The common people, on the whole, are still living in the world of absolute good and evil from which the intellectuals have long since escaped. George Orwell evil long people Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent. George Orwell atheism saint judging 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 future past thinking Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache... Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness. George Orwell perfection men thinking It was like swimming against a current that swept you backwards however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. Nothing had changed except your own attitude: the predestined thing happened in any case. George Orwell nineteen swimming attitude If there really is such a thing as turning in one's grave, Shakespeare must get a lot of exercise. George Orwell graves ifs exercise Probably the best nonsense poetry is produced gradually and accidentally, by communities rather than by individuals. George Orwell nonsense individual community The clock struck half past two. In the little office at the back of Mr. McKechnie's bookshop, Gordon--Gordon Comstock, last member of the Comstock family, aged twenty-nine and rather moth-eaten already--lounged across the table, pushing a fourpenny packet of Player's Weights open and shut with his thumb. George Orwell player book past
