Quote

A dirty joke is not, of course, a serious attack on morality, but it is a sort of mental rebellion, a momentary wish that things were otherwise.

George Orwell

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

George Orwell
Age: 46 †
Born: 1903
Born: June 25
Died: 1950
Died: January 21
Autobiographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Poet
Screenwriter
War Correspondent
Writer
Eric Blair
P. S. Burton
Eric Arthur Blair
John Freeman
Things
Jokes
Morality
Momentary
Humor
Rebellion
Serious
Joke
Sort
Attack
Courses
Dirty
Course
Mental
Wish
Otherwise

More quotes by George Orwell

Image
Power is not a means it is an end.
George Orwell
Image
they say that time heals all things, they say you can always forget but the smiles and the tears across the years they twist my heart strings yet!
George Orwell
Image
Has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'that the whole history of English poetry has been de-termined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?
George Orwell
Image
If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, I'm a free man in here - he tapped his forehead - and you're all right.
George Orwell
Image
The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug - that is, grudgingly and suspiciously. Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous, and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes.
George Orwell
Image
Writing a novel is agony.
George Orwell
Image
I always disagree, however, when people end up saying that we can only combat Communism, Fascism or what not if we develop an equal fanaticism. It appears to me that one defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.
George Orwell
Image
Four legs good, two legs bad.
George Orwell
Image
It is one of the tragedies of the half-educated that they develop late, when they are already committed to some wrong way of life.
George Orwell
Image
That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.
George Orwell
Image
A minority of one... the definition of insanity.
George Orwell
Image
In moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy but always against one's own body.
George Orwell
Image
It's a wonderful feeling to have a niece like you Because you are always so dear You are so dear no matter the year But all throughout each day of the year There could hardly be a town in the South of England where you could throw a brick without hitting the niece of a bishop.
George Orwell
Image
The four great motives for writing prose are sheer egoism, esthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose.
George Orwell
Image
The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people - people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behavior, just as money frees people from work.
George Orwell
Image
You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.
George Orwell
Image
The whole question of evolution seems less momentous than it did, because, unlike the Victorians, we do not feel that to be descended from animals is degrading to human dignity.
George Orwell
Image
Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.
George Orwell
Image
The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon.
George Orwell
Image
The existence of good bad literature—the fact that one can be amused or excited or even moved by a book that one's intellect simply refuses to take seriously—is a reminder that art is not the same thing as cerebration.
George Orwell