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George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair, known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, biting social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism. (1903-1950)

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

– George Orwell

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Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

– George Orwell

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We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

– George Orwell

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For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle (home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics) he feels himself master of his fate, but against major events he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavouring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him.

– George Orwell

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If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.

– George Orwell

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Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

– George Orwell

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Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

– George Orwell

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All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

– George Orwell

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Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing.

– George Orwell

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At age 50, every man has the face he deserves.

– George Orwell

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For a creative writer possession of the truth is less important than emotional sincerity.

– George Orwell

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If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

– George Orwell

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On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time.

– George Orwell

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The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that he is already degraded.

– George Orwell

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The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals.

– George Orwell

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The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

– George Orwell

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The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

– George Orwell

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To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.

– George Orwell

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...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

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Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

– George Orwell

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An 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

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Big Brother is watching you.

– George Orwell

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All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

– George Orwell

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Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

– George Orwell

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In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

– George Orwell

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No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is a thing that human beings must avoid.

– George Orwell

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Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

– George Orwell

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The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.

– George Orwell

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you can't live life without consequences. They occur regardless of the decision. A consequence is an outcome, good or bad. You can live life without regrets and thats what makes it worth it. Or you could live with regret and end up hanging yourself but thats still good. You paid for the rope so your feeding someones family. Something to be proud of before you kick the bucket

– George Orwell

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If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.

– George Orwell

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He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past.

– George Orwell

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People sleep peacably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

– George Orwell

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Every 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

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In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

– George Orwell

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It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found to be generally true that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon --so long as there is no answer to it-- gives claws to the weak.

– George Orwell

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Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.

– George Orwell

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To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armor, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.

– George Orwell

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Society has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

– George Orwell

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But the thing that I saw in your face no power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit.

– George Orwell

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Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.

– George Orwell

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Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

– George Orwell

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Freedom is the right to say two plus two make four. If granted, all else follows.

– George Orwell

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Good prose is like a window-pane

– George Orwell

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I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

– George Orwell

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On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

– George Orwell

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Orthodoxy is Unconsciousness.

– George Orwell

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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

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The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.

– George Orwell

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The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

– George Orwell

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Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.

– George Orwell

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Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

– George Orwell

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To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle.

– George Orwell

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Quotes from the news wire:

When the Communists gained control … and began to hunt down [my socialist faction] … we were very lucky to get out of Spain alive.

– George Orwell

Found on FOX News 3 years ago

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