One always abandons something in retreat. Look at Napoleon at the Beresina! He abandoned his whole army. George Orwell More Quotes by George Orwell More Quotes From George Orwell The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it. George Orwell militarywarpeace To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay. George Orwell politicalcivilizationmean No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? George Orwell decisionanimalbelieve In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird. George Orwell partyviewsreality In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer. George Orwell anvilshammersreal Fate seemed to be playing a series of extraordinarily unamusing jokes. George Orwell seriesjokesfate 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 a battlefield. George Orwell faithbelievereality It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level. George Orwell over-youpeoplefall We have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don't take the sword perish by smelly diseases. George Orwell fightingwardirty In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. George Orwell political-languagewritingtime We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. George Orwell skullsmindreality Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox. George Orwell writingchildrenthinking All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. George Orwell warpeacelying The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions - racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war - which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action. George Orwell religiousspringwar 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 independentevilcivilization We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun. George Orwell gunrunningfood [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 does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet. Not to have a national anthem would be logical. George Orwell usewould-beworld Some people have a knack, for example, of being able to tell when someone's lying to them. They may not know what the truth is, but they can tell when someone is trying to lead them astray or sell them something shady. I think he had that ability to an amazing degree. I also think he thought, without saying it explicitly, that you can convince a crowd of something that's not true more easily than you can one person at a time. George Orwell booklyingthinking In the face of pain there are no heroes. George Orwell painherofaces The English are not happy unless they are miserable, the Irish are not at peace unless they are at war, and the Scots are not at home unless they are abroad. George Orwell scotlandhomewar
