Quotessence
Home / Authors / George Orwell
George Orwell

George Orwell Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsWarPeopleHumansWritingMenThinkingPoliticalWorldPolitics

Famous George Orwell Quotes

“It had never occurred to him that the body of a woman of fifty, blown up to monstrous dimensions by childbearing, then hardened, roughened by work til it was coarse in the grain like an overripe turnip, could be beautiful. But is was so, and after all, he thought, why not?”

BodyBeautifulFiftyDimensionsWhy NotGrainMonstrousHardenedCoarseTurnipsChildbearing
Book:Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four: Text, Sources, Criticism
Create image

“Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by inquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings, for that matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.”

IfsHumansHeartSaidMatterDoneFactsFeelingsWantedDifferencesAliveObjectsLaysRateDetailsMysteriousTortureInquiryStaying Alive
Author:George Orwell
Create image

“To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.”

WritingArtSpeakLanguageStruggleInvolvedMetaphorSentencesGreekPhrasesLatinWornObscurityLureAdjectivesWorn OutSpeak EnglishEncroachmentVaguenessLatin And Greek
Author:George Orwell
Create image

“He wondered vaguely whether in the abolished past it had been a normal experience to lie in bed like this, in the cool of a summer evening, a man and a woman with no clothes on, making love when they chose, talking of what they chose, not feeling any compulsion to get up, simply lying there and listening to peaceful sounds outside. Surely there could never have been a time when that seemed ordinary?”

MenHas BeensFeelingsPastLyingSoundTalkingListeningBedNormalSummerClothesOrdinaryGet UpPeacefulEveningMaking LoveCompulsionSummer Evening
Book:Animal Farm and 1984
Create image

“You are a slow learner, Winston." "How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? 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.”

TryingTwoSometimesHelpingEyeThreeEasyFiveFourFrontsHarderSaneLearners
Book:The Complete Novels of George Orwell: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Create image

“It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same--everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same--people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWellsHeartPoliticalLyingPoliticsExistenceMillionsSkyWallOne DayHatredIgnorantCuriousMusclesBelly
Book:Nineteen Eighty-Four
Create image

“I felt as if I was the only person awake in a city of sleepwalkers. That's an illusion, of course. When you walk through a crowd of strangers it's next door to impossible not to imagine that they're all waxworks, but probably they're thinking just the same about you.”

IfsThinkingPersonsCoursesNextFeltWalksCitiesImagineImpossibleDoorsIllusionCrowdsStrangerAwakeImagine That
Book:The Penguin complete novels of George Orwell
Create image

“Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”

IfsThinkingLongUseUsedVoiceBreakCuttingSeeingFiguresSpeechEverydayMetaphorActivePhrasesPrintPassiveSay AnythingSimileJargonFigures Of SpeechLong WordsPassive Voice
Book:Shooting an Elephant: And Other Essays
Create image

“There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.”

IfsWantHumansMomentsFacesProcessForgetPleasureEnemyForeverGrowingImagineVictoryCuriosityDestroyedEnjoymentSensationsBootsHelplessThrillCompetingIntoxicationHuman FacesProcess Of Life
Book:Nineteen eighty-four, [by] George Orwell
Create image