George Orwell

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

- George Orwell

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."

- George Orwell

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

- George Orwell

"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it."

- George Orwell

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

- George Orwell

"Four legs good, two legs bad."

- George Orwell

"Happiness can exist only in acceptance."

- George Orwell

"Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness."

- George Orwell

"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

- George Orwell

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."

- George Orwell

"Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

- George Orwell

"People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

- George Orwell

"We sleep peaceably in our beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf."

- George Orwell

"Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

- George Orwell

"“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”"

- George Orwell

"Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own orthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened."

- George Orwell

"When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing."

- George Orwell

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm"

- George Orwell

"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."

- George Orwell

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

- George Orwell

"The best books... are those that tell you what you know already."

- George Orwell

"We may be together for another six months—a year—there’s no knowing. At the end we’re certain to be apart. Do you realize how utterly alone we shall be?"

- George Orwell

"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

"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

- George Orwell

"The best books… are those that tell you what you know already."

- George Orwell

"Day is over, night has come. Today is gone, what’s done is done. Embrace your dreams, through the night. Tomorrow comes with a whole new light."

- George Orwell

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

- George Orwell

"Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me."

- George Orwell

"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

- George Orwell

"All animals are equal but some are more equal than others."

- George Orwell

"At 50, everyone has the face they deserve."

- George Orwell

"“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”"

- George Orwell