Connexions Quotations
George Orwell
Quotes
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All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts.
A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency.
Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them,
and there is almost no kind of outrage – torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations,
imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians – which does not change its moral colour
when it is committed by ‘our’ side . . . The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side,
but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
- George Orwell
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All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
- George Orwell
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Creeds like pacifism and anarchism, which seem on the surface to imply a complete renunciation of power,
rather encourage this habit of mind. For if you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics
– a creed from which you cannot expect to draw any material advantage – surely that proves that you are in the right?
And the more you are in the right, the more natural that everyone else should be bullied into thinking likewise.
- George Orwell
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Double think means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
- George Orwell
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Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
- George Orwell
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Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.
- George Orwell
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The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.
- George Orwell
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Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war
but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
- George Orwell
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Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
- George Orwell
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If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
George Orwell
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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell
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Liberal: a power worshipper without power.
- George Orwell
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“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
- George Orwell
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The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
- George Orwell
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There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
- George Orwell
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Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
- George Orwell
Nineteen Eight-Four
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Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.
- George Orwell
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