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Creeds like pacifism or 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 ... the more you are in the right (and) everybody else should be bullied into thinking otherwise.

George Orwell

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George Orwell
Age: 46 †
Born: 1903
Born: June 25
Died: 1950
Died: January 21
Autobiographer
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Eric Blair
P. S. Burton
Eric Arthur Blair
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He thought with a kind of astonishment of the biological uselessness of pain and fear, the treachery of the human body which always freezes into inertia at exactly the moment when a special effort is needed.
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To die hating them, that was freedom.
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By revolution we become more ourselves, not less.
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Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent, but the tests that have to be applied to them are not, of course, the same in all cases.
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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.
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In moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy but always against one's own body.
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[You write out of the] desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, etc., etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive and a strong one.
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We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now.
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The secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own infallibility with a power to learn from past mistakes.
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In places this book is a little over-written, because Mr Blunden is no more able to resist a quotation than some people are to refuse a drink.
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A minority of one... the definition of insanity.
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He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.
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Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.
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One wants to live, of course, indeed one only stays alive by virtue of the fear of death.
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One can love a child, perhaps, more deeply than one can love another adult, but it is rash to assume that the child feels any love in return.
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Myths which are believed in tend to become true.
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A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened.
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I am afraid of death. You are young, so presumably you're more afraid of it than I am. Obviously we shall put if off as long as we can. But it makes very little difference. So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing.
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