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George Orwell

57 quotes

George Orwell (1903–1950) was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, an English novelist, essayist, and critic best known for the allegorical novella *Animal Farm* and the dystopian novel *Nineteen Eighty-Four*. His clear, direct prose style and fierce opposition to totalitarianism made him one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.

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“The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”

— George Orwell

War

All Quotes by George Orwell

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

— George Orwell

Freedom

“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.”

— George Orwell

War

“The intellectual is different from the ordinary man, but only in certain sections of his personality, and even then not all the time.”

— George Orwell

Time

“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”

— George Orwell

History

“Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie... a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.”

— George Orwell

Funny

“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.”

— George Orwell

War

“War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.”

— George Orwell

War

“War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent.”

— George Orwell

War

“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”

— George Orwell

Intelligence

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

— George Orwell

Future

“There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more of less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.”

— George Orwell

War

“To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.”

— George Orwell

War

“No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.”

— George Orwell

Truth

“We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.”

— George Orwell

Food

“Oceania was at war with Eurasia therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.”

— George Orwell

War

“In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

— George Orwell

Time

“Society has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.”

— George Orwell

Society

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

— George Orwell

Men

“Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.”

— George Orwell

Good

“Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.”

— George Orwell

Good