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There is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion.

George Orwell

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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
Tests
Survival
Majority
Except
Opinion
Index
Literary
Merit
Test

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If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that can be given a name.
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If he thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens.
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Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase in pain. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop.
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The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education and fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which is responsible for economic affairs. their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv and Miniplenty
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From the totalitarian point of view, history is something to be created rather than learned.
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Politics is the choice between the lesser of two evils.
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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.
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The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.
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Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
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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.
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Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.
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Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.
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Why should be fruit be held inferior to the flower?
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He drove his mind into the abyss where poetry is written.
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Manchester is the belly and guts of the nation
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Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.
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