Orwellian Quotes

“One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.”
― Golda Meir, My Life

“The term "political correctness" has always appalled me, reminding me of Orwell's "Thought Police" and fascist regimes.”
― Helmut Newton

“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.”
― George W. Bush

“Then the face of Big Brother faded away again and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:  

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
― George Orwell

“It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write.”
― George Orwell, Why I Write

“(...) ha! what is hope? a butterfly in a box

of demons, and nothing escapes the dark

untainted, a mockery of politics and greed

stamped with treason and dipped in

myths and force-fed brainwashing

going off after a time for the grand

massacre of faith, humanity,

and still we search, scorched feet

for life but find only fake plastic trees

satirical, ludicrous, and ironic”
― Moonshine Noire

“Rather like "Orwellian", the term "Kafkaesque" has come to be used, often enough by those who have not read a word of Kafka, to describe what are perceived as typically or even uniquely modern traumas: existential alienation, isolation and insecurity, the labyrinth of state bureaucracy, the corrupt or whimsical abuse of totalitarian power, the impenetrable tangle of legal systems, the knock on the door in the middle of the night….”
― John R. Williams, The Metamorphosis and Other Stories

“It is not what a government does with data that defines it; it is what it does to human beings.”
― Garry Kasparov, Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped

“More recently, we’ve reached the lowest common denominator, and populism, politics and media have dispensed with old-fashioned values such as truth, honour and chivalry, to the point of arguing, in an Orwellian way, that “up is down”, “wrong is right”, and “truth is fake news”.”
― H.M. Forester, Secret Friends: The Ramblings of a Madman in Search of a Soul

“We would do well, as Orwell counselled, to see the traces of the dystopian around us, to find the ends of those threads and how far along we are; the most accurate prophecy being that people, and the allure of domination, never really change. We can Copenhagenise our future cities, make them as green and smart as we can, but provided we are still embedded in systems that reward cronyism, exploitation and short-term profiteering, that require poverty and degradation, it will be mere camouflage. Dystopias will have cycle lanes and host World Cups. What may save us is, in Orwell’s words, a dedication to ‘common decency’ and the perpetual knowledge that it need not be like this.”
― Darran Anderson, Imaginary Cities

“The labor of the exploited peoples around the equator is not really necessary to the world’s economy. They add nothing to the wealth of the world since whatever they produce is used for purposes of war, and the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.

By their labor, the slave populations allow the tempo of continuous warfare to be speeded up, but if they did not exist, the structure of world society and the process by which it maintains itself would not be essentially different.

The primary aim of modern warfare, in accordance with the principles of double think, the same simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party, is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.”
― George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

“In a world, slowly but consistently morphing into a well structured global tyranny, it is preferable to have questions one cannot answer; than to have answers that one cannot question.”
― Mamur Mustapha

“...one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring some improvement by starting at the verbal end....Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
-- 'Politics and the English Language,' 1946”
― George Orwell

“1984 was alive and well in 2015.”
― Kenneth Eade, The Spy Files

“Such is the control, and such the public mentality, enjoyed by the Swedish planners. The rulers of the Soviet Union, although favoured by despotic power, are not so fortunate. Obstructively resentful of officialdom, the Russian, in the words of the Spanish saying, has always known how orders are 'to be obeyed but not carried out'. To the Swede, that sort of compromise is downright immoral. His elected leaders have received those political blessings denied the autocrats in the Kremlin: compliant citizens and an unopposed bureaucracy.”
― Roland Huntford, The New Totalitarians

“The imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity.”
― George Orwell

“It is absolutely necessary to their structure that there should be no contact with foreigners except to a limited extent with war prisoners and colored slaves. Even the official ally of the moment is always regarded with a darkest suspicion. War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners, he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken and the fear, hatred and self-righteousness on which his moral depends might evaporate. It is therefore realized on all sides that however often Persia or Egypt or Java or Ceylon may change hands, the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs.”
― George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

“The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenants of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous, outrageous upon morality and common sense. Actually, the three philosophies are barely distinguishable, and the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all. Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship or the semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare.

It follows that three super states not only cannot conquer one another but would gain no advantage by doing so. On the contrary, so long as they remain in conflict they prop one another up like three sheaves of corn, and as usual, the ruling groups of all three powers are simultaneously aware and unaware of what they are doing. Their lives are dedicated to world conquest but they also know that it is necessary that the war should continue everlastingly and without victory.”
― George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

“Chuck away your decency and make more money' - that's what women say. 'Chuck your decency, suck the blacking off the boss's boots and buy me a better fur coat than the woman next door'.”
― George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying

“How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive?”
― George Orwell, 1984

“How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive?”
― George Orwell, 1984

“consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become
unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is
always right. I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers,
boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened”
― George Orwell, 1984

“It would be impossible for me, for instance, to debate the rights and wrongs of the Barcelona fighting with a Communist Party member, because no Communist—that is to say, no ‘good’ Communist—could admit that I have given a truthful account of the facts. If he followed his party ‘line’ dutifully he would have to declare that I am lying or, at best, that I am hopelessly misled and that anyone who glanced at the Daily Worker headlines a thousand miles from the scene of events knows more of what was happening in Barcelona than I do. In such circumstances there can be no argument; the necessary minimum of agreement cannot be reached.”
― George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

“El lenguaje suponía un campo de batalla donde conformar la realidad. Para los árabes «la paz» significaba su derecho de someter a otros pueblos, la Iglesia los apoyaba por que la pazpreservara sus privilegios, y esa misma paz convertía a los señores miladíes en reyezuelos. Y una vez que se impuso la «la paz del Islám», sólo existían dos bandos: los amantes de la paz y los belicistas que se oponían a ella.”
― Yeyo Balbás, Cova Dónnica

“What times of faith trial we are all in together...Orwell understood it better then than many do today. Humanitarian unity that is demonstrated in a spirit saturated in love actions, can that transcend seasonal cultures and cross border customs - can become the greater force of all other forces; complicated to measure and beyond human understanding in its beautiful power.”
― Dr. Tracey Bond

“Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer, though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make a five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Thou Shalt Kill by Stewart Stafford

Today, an official declaration:
"The past's forbidden soil is virgin;
The present, a thunderous chariot,
To glory's gold destiny awaiting us.
Go forth and offer up sacrifices!"

But the blood we spilt was red,
Whichever body it spurted from.
Pleas for help, fused into one.
Witnesses to death grew jaded.

We made the living into the dead,
Forged museums of crowded streets,
In executioners' hoods at limp dawn.
Arising afresh to our deliverance.

© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford