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George Orwell

George Orwell Quotes

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Famous George Orwell Quotes

“[What Hayek] does not see, or will not admit, [is] that a return to "free" competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the State. The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them. Professor Hayek denies that free capitalism necessarily leads to monopoly, but in practice that is where it has led, and since the vast majority of people would far rather have State regimentation than slumps and unemployment, the drift towards collectivism is bound to continue if popular opinion has any say in the matter.”

PeopleIfsMeanDoeMatterStatesWinningOpinionPracticeTroubleReturnMassCapitalismMajorityCompetitionBoundsDenyLibertarianTyrannyProfessorsUnemploymentMonopolyIrresponsibleCollectivismPopular OpinionHayekSlumpsRegimentation
Book:Orwell: The Observer Years
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“Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity.”

WorldMayHas BeensWholeSlaverySlaveDecadesThriveEmpiresAnarchyStableBreakdownHeadingsAntiquityEpoch
Book:The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: In front of your nose, 1945-1950
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“A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.”

LongRealFactsAgePoliticalLyingSufferingTurnsFallLanguageEnemyIssuesClearMassHatredAimDetailsSnowAtmosphereFollyLatinGapsExhaustedInkCoveringOutlinesSchizophreniaEvasionIdiomInsincerityPolitical IssuesLong WordsPolitical LanguageBad LanguageCuttlefish
Book:Orwell and politics: Animal farm in the context of essays, reviews and letters selected from the complete works of George Orwell
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“The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw him into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as 'Sir'”

IfsWorldPersonsJobsHouseLandOrdinaryPrisonSlaveAddressesSpokesFactoriesConspiracyCapitalistBowsCapsCringeOrdinary Person
Book:Nineteen Eighty-Four
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“Bombing is not especially inhumane. War itself is inhumane and the bombing plane, which is used to paralyse industry and transport, is a relatively civilised weapon. 'Normal' or 'legitimate' warfare is just as destructive of inanimate objects and enormously so of human lives.”

HumansWarUsedObjectsIndustryNormalWeaponsHistoricalPlanesHuman LifeDestructiveWarfareTransportBombingCivilisedInanimate ObjectsInhumane
Book:Fifty Essays (George Orwell) (Literary Thoughts Edition)
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“Certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain... Hitler, because in his joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life.”

KnowsWantFeelsMindHumansMaySelfPainDesireHoursHuman BeingsCommonHistoryStruggleSacrificeEconomicSecurityTheoryBirthComfortSafetyLoyaltyCommon SenseEaseProgressiveConceptionFascismFlagsExceptionalAvoidanceParadesSelf SacrificeNazismBirth ControlHygieneEconomic TheoryHedonisticSounder
Author:George Orwell
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“A thing which I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time, is that I have never in my life planted a walnut. Nobody does plant them nowadays-when you see a walnut it is almost invariably an old tree. If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren?”

IfsTryingDoeCareTreeRegretPlantDamnRemedyGrandchildrenWho CaresI RegretOld TreesWalnuts
Book:Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays
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“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”

WayHumansLongWarMightRunningUsedPiecesSeaMaterialsProductsEssentialsComfortableMassLaborDestructionIntelligentDepthHuman LifeLong RunsPouringSinkingShattering
Book:Animal Farm and 1984
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“To say "I accept" in an age like our own is to say that you accept concentration-camps, rubber truncheons, Hitler, Stalin, bombs, aeroplanes, tinned food, machine guns, putsches, purges, slogans, Bedaux belts, gas-masks, submarines, spies, provocateurs, press-censorship, secret prisons, aspirins, Hollywood films and political murder.”

AgeFilmPoliticalFreedomSecretAcceptingGunHollywoodMachinesMurderPressesPrisonBombsGasMaskConcentrationCampsCensorshipSpyBeltsSlogansAeroplanesRubberConcentration CampSubmarinesAspirinMachine GunsHollywood FilmsGas Masks
Book:A Collection of Essays
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“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.”

PeopleFactsPoliticalNationsRaceDoubtWorstBecomingRacismDespiseForeignersInsultingNicknamesOffendersEnglish Speaking
Book:All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays
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“The past is a curious thing. It's with you all the time. I suppose an hour never passes without your thinking of things that happened ten or twenty years ago, and yet most of the time it's got no reality, it's just a set of facts that you've learned, like a lot of stuff in a history book. Then some chance sight or sound or smell, especially smell, sets you going, and the past doesn't merely come back to you, you're actually IN the past. It was like that at this moment.”

ThinkingYearsBookMomentsFactsRealityPastStuffSoundHoursChanceHappenedTenYears AgoSightTwentiesSmellCuriousHistory Books
Book:The Penguin complete novels of George Orwell
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“During the first two months of the war it was the Anarchists more than anyone else who had saved the situation, and much later than this the Anarchist militia, in spite of their indiscipline, were notoriously the best fighters among the purely Spanish forces.”

FirstsTwoWarForceSituationMonthsSavedFighterRevolutionarySpiteAnarchistTwo MonthsMilitia
Book:Homage to Catalonia / Down and Out in Paris and London
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