“Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.”
Power“Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.”
Good“Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.”
Power“War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent.”
War“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.”
Jealousy“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
Power“To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.”
War“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.”
Best“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.”
Future“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”
Great“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
Freedom“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
Freedom“I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment.”
Education“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.”
War“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
Future“Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.”
Patriotism“There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.”
Intelligence“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
Intelligence“Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”
Happiness“Serious sport is war minus the shooting.”
War“Liberal: a power worshipper without power.”
Power“It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.”
Fear