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George Orwell

George Orwell Quotes

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Famous George Orwell Quotes

“Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.”

PeopleIfsBelieveHumansHardPainDesireI BelieveWishFeltHuman BeingsAchieveHard WorkRootsSaintPsychologicalTemptationMotiveAttachmentAspireSainthood
Book:Our job is to make life worth living, 1949-1950
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“By preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.”

HumansLittlesEnergyHuman BeingsLeaderWorshipHatredDoctrineConcretePreachingSteelOutletsSurplus
Book:The Complete Works of George Orwell: Smothered under journalism, 1946
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“In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by "thou shalt not", the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by "love" or "reason", he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.”

ThinkingWayHumansReasonLawCertainIndividualHuman BeingsAnimalOpinionTheoryAmountPressureBehaveUrgesConformityBehaviourPublic OpinionCompulsionPractiseEccentricityArbiterGregarious
Book:All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays
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“The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule , between good and evil but between two evils. You can let the Nazis rule the world : that is evil; or you can overthrow them by war , which is also evil. There is no other choice before you, and whichever you choose you will not come out with clean hands.”

WorldHumansTwoWarHandsChoicesEvilHuman BeingsCleanGood And EvilYou ChooseNaziTwo EvilsClean Hands
Book:All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays
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“By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions and tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled 'good' or 'bad'...By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.”

PeopleWorldWayFirstsBelieveHumansMeanWholeHandsDesireForceWishHuman BeingsMillionsParticularHabitEthicsAssumingDevotionBlockNationalismInsectsInseparableDesire For Power
Author:George Orwell
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“When you meet anyone in the flesh you realize immediately that he is a human being and not a sort of caricature embodying certain ideas. It is partly for this reason that I don't mix much in literary circles, because I know from experience that once I have met and spoken to anyone I shall never again be able to feel any intellectual brutality towards him, even when I feel I ought to - like the Labour M.P.s who get patted on the back by dukes and are lost forever more.”

KnowsFeelsHumansIdeasReasonAbleCertainLostRealizingHuman BeingsForeverOughtMetsIntellectualRelationFleshCirclesLabourBrutalityHuman RelationsDukesCaricatures
Author:George Orwell
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“The major problem of our time is the decay in the belief in personal immortality, and it cannot be dealt with while the average human being is either drudging like an ox or shivering in fear of the secret police... How right [the working classes] are to realize that the belly comes before the soul, not in the scale of values but in point of time!”

HumansSoulProblemValuesBeliefRealizingHuman BeingsSecretClassMajorsPoliceAverageScalesImmortalityOur TimeDecayWorking ClassBellyMajor ProblemsSecret Police
Book:Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays
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“Men use up their lives in heart-breaking political struggles, or get themselves killed in civil wars, or tortured in the secret prisons of the Gestapo, not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another.”

MenWorldWantHumansHeartWarUsePoliticalOrderHuman BeingsSecretStruggleAirPrisonCivil WarParadiseLove One AnotherHeart BreakingPolitical StruggleGestapoSwindling
Book:The Complete Works of George Orwell: I have tried to tell the truth, 1943-1944
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“For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.”

IfsThinkingHumansLongDoneRunningHuman BeingsPovertySecurityIgnoranceMassFunctionBasesEnjoyedMinoritiesRealisingLeisureLong RunsSooner Or LaterPrivilegedIgnorance In 19841984 Important
Book:Animal Farm and 1984
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“When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases - bestial atrocities, iron heel, blood-stained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder - one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy, the appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved”

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Author:George Orwell
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“High sentiments always win in the end. The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.”

InspirationalHumansEndsMotivationalWinningLeadershipHuman BeingsLeaderBloodTearsOffersSafetyGood TimesSentimentsFollowersSweatHeroicToilGreat LeaderWorld LeaderGood LeaderBeing A LeaderInspiring LeaderGreat LeadershipMotivational LeadershipGood LeadershipLeadership By Great LeadersOutstanding LeadershipPowerful LeadersLeaders MotivationalBorn LeadersEmpowering OthersBeing A Good Leader
Book:A Collection of Essays
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“The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand.”

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Book:The Penguin complete novels of George Orwell
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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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“Scientific education for the masses will do little good, and probably a lot of harm, if it simply boils down to more physics, more chemistry, more biology, etc to the detriment of literature and history. Its probable effect on the average human being would be to narrow the range of his thoughts and make him more than ever contemptuous of such knowledge as he did not possess.”

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Author:George Orwell
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