Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. . George Orwell
About This Quote

In the quote above, Orwell is pointing out that people in a totalitarian society are not allowed to think for themselves. Everything they do must be based on the ideas that the government has taught them. This places a great deal of stress on the people in that particular society, because they are expected to blindly follow the ideas that they have been told. The most common source of this kind of stress is in fact war.

If there is no war with an opposing nation, then the citizenry must be forced to fight within their own country. They must be made to believe that there is an enemy within who wants to take over everything, when in fact it may be the case that the citizens themselves are the enemy.

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More Quotes By George Orwell
  1. 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.
  2. At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.
  3. This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.
  4. Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
  5. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
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