Quotessence
Home / Authors / George Orwell
George Orwell

George Orwell Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsWarPeopleHumansWritingMenThinkingPoliticalWorldPolitics1984LiteratureFactsHuman BeingsGeorge OrwellLongPastBookDoeLying

Famous George Orwell Quotes

“... ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance... A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon -- so long as there is no answer to it -- gives claws to the weak.”

PeopleGivingLongAgeStrongDifficultChanceSimpleAnswersCommonWeaponsWeakStrongerComplexesExpensiveDominantDespotismClaws
Book:The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: In front of your nose, 1945-1950
Create image

“Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable.”

LongDoeMatterFactsRunningAgePastLostForceExistenceClassPromiseSucceedDemandFunctionStructureObjectivesFraudArtificialStableLong RunsPersistRulingTotalitarianismDisbeliefClingingSchizophreniaAlterationsObjective Truth
Author:George Orwell
Create image

“And in the general hardening of outlook that set in ... practices which had been long abandoned ... -- imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations -- not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.”

PeopleLongWarWholeUseCommonPracticeSlavePopulationTrialsTortureEnlightenedProgressivePrisonerAbandonedConfessionExecutionOutlookImprisonmentHostageDeportationIgnorance In 1984
Book:1984
Create image

“Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy.”

WayWritingLongDoeTogetherOrderEasyResultsModernWorstSakeAttractionSheerInventingHumbug
Book:A Collection of Essays
Create image

“We believe half-instinctively that evil always defeats itself in the long run. Pacifism is founded largely on this belief. Don't resist evil, and it will somehow destroy itself. But why should it? What evidence is there that it does... unless conquered from the outside by military force?”

ShouldBelieveLongDoeRunningEvilBeliefForceHalfMilitaryEvidenceDefeatLong RunsPacifismMilitary Force
Book:Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays
Create image

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”

IfsWritingLongBookStruggleWrittenPainfulIllnessDrivenHorribleDemonWriting LifeWriting AdviceWriting A BookExhaustingWriters And WritingBook WritingWriter's BlockWriting By WritersReading And WritingCreativity And WritingWriters ReadingWriting And ReadingInspiration To WriteReading WritingWriting ShortEditing And WritingShort Writing
Book:A Collection of Essays
Create image

“So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern...Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.”

MindChildrenLongHomeCareFilmLeftDifficultNaturalStyleFootballActivityImportanceFilledPatternsHeavyNeighborBeerGamblingHorizonPettyQuarrelsCattleArgentinaFilled Up
Author: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

“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
Create image

“The process [of mass-media deception] has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies all this is indispensably necessary.”

BelieveLongFactsFeelingsRealityTruthLyingProcessForgetExistenceMediaNeededMassDrawsConsciousAccountsGuiltDenyTyrannyObjectivesDeceptionSufficientUnconsciousTyrantsOblivionDeliberatePrecisionInconvenientMass MediaFalsityObjective RealityMedia ControlIgnorance In 1984
Author:George Orwell
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.”

WritingLongBookStruggleWrittenPainfulIllnessHorribleDemonWriting LifeWriting AdviceWriting A BookExhaustingWriters And WritingBook WritingWriter's BlockWriting By WritersReading And WritingCreativity And WritingWriters ReadingWriting And ReadingInspiration To WriteReading WritingWriting WordsWriting ShortEditing And WritingShort Writing
Book:A Collection of Essays
Create image

“The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.”

WorldWayLongImportantCertainFatherViewsGroupsSonEssenceRemainsStructureTyrannyPersistenceTyrantsRulingInheritanceFather SonSuccessorsWorld ViewIgnorance In 1984
Author:George Orwell
Create image