Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. George Orwell
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. George Orwell
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it. George Orwell
At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals. George Orwell
Serious sport is war minus the shooting. George Orwell
A man receiving charity always hates his benefactor – it is a fixed characteristic of human nature. George Orwell
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards. George Orwell
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
Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. George Orwell
All people who have reached the point of becoming nations tend to despise foreigners, but there is not much doubt that the English-speaking races are the worst offenders. One can see this from the fact that as soon as they become fully aware of any foreign race they invent an insulting nickname for it. George Orwell
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. George Orwell
It was a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen. George Orwell
Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket. George Orwell
Liberal – a power worshipper without power. George Orwell
Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child’s eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below. George Orwell
Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent. George Orwell
It is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. George Orwell
As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents. George Orwell
Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats. George Orwell
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. George Orwell
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship. George Orwell
The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature. George Orwell