George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair, who used the pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth25 June 1903
CityMotihari, India
expression giving anxiety
It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself-anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face ... was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime ...
want news advertising
News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising.
lying choices freedom-and-happiness
The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.
believe animal decision
No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?
courage truth struggle
To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.
life happiness happy
Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.
dog book reading
And if our book consumption remains as low as it has been, at least let us admit that it is because reading is a less exciting pastime than going to the dogs, the pictures or the pub, and not because books, whether bought or borrowed, are too expensive.
modern frills
The modern writer who has influenced me most is W. Somerset Maugham .
men ugly may
A man may take to drink because he feels himself to he a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
inspirational life language-words
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
real division libertarian
The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.
break bigs ifs
If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones.
mistake past order
A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened.
witty peace truth
Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.