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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.

“Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.”

— George Orwell

Happiness

All Quotes by George Orwell

“He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.”

— George Orwell

God

“Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.”

— George Orwell

Happiness

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

— George Orwell

Freedom

“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.”

— George Orwell

Fear

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

— George Orwell

Society

“Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”

— George Orwell

Happiness

“No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.”

— George Orwell

Equality

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

— George Orwell

War

“If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?”

— George Orwell

Politics

“Serious sport is war minus the shooting.”

— George Orwell

War

“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

“I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment.”

— George Orwell

Education

“Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.”

— George Orwell

Power

“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.”

— George Orwell

Best

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

— George Orwell

War

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

— George Orwell

Food

“Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child's eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below.”

— George Orwell

Best

“In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”

— George Orwell

Age

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

— George Orwell

Time

“Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.”

— George Orwell

Age