200+ "George Orwell" Quotes And Sayings

George Orwell was born Eric Blair in Bengal, India. His family moved to England when he was ten years old. He gained a first class degree in English literature at the University of Cambridge, where he studied under C. K Read more

Scott Moncrieff and T. S. Eliot, and became an active member of the Labour Party.

He saw action with the British army during World War I before becoming a full-time writer in Paris, where he also became involved with the French resistance movement. After World War II, he returned to England and married Sonia Brownell. He died on January 21, 1950.

Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't...
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Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal. George Orwell
At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.
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At 50, everyone has the face he deserves. George Orwell
This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented...
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This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half. George Orwell
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the...
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Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. George Orwell
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
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War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. George Orwell
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Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. George Orwell
On the whole human beings want to be good, but...
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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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For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable — what then? George Orwell
Windmill or no windmill, he said, life would go on...
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Windmill or no windmill, he said, life would go on as it had always gone on--that is, badly. George Orwell
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He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It was a tricky ending, involving a couple of knights.' White to play and mate in two moves.' Winston looked up at the portrait of Big Brother. White always mates, he thought with a sort of cloudy mysticism. Always, without exception, it is so arranged. In no chess problem since the beginning of the world has black ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal, unvarying triumph of Good over Evil? The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power. White always mates. . George Orwell
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement...
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We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. George Orwell
Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much...
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Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood. George Orwell
In a time of deceit telling the truth is a...
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In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
The essence of being human is that one does not...
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The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection. George Orwell
Being in a minority, even in a minority of one,...
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Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. 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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To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink. George Orwell
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To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone– to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink – greetings! George Orwell
He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody...
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He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. George Orwell
All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and...
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All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news. George Orwell