George Orwell
1984, Animal Farm, champion of political clarity
Most quoted
"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?"
— from Animal Farm, 1945
"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."
— from Politics and the English Language, 1946
"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."
— from Politics and the English Language, 1946
All quotes by George Orwell (198)
The object of war is not to make or prevent conquests but to keep the structure of society intact.
The more a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
People can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.
I am a man of the Left and I am a Socialist, but I am also an individualist and a libertarian. I believe in freedom of thought and speech, and I believe that the individual is more important than the state.
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.
I have come to believe that the only way to write a good book is to write it for yourself, and then to hope that others will like it.
The English intellectual is in the main a Left-wing sympathizer, but he is also a snob.
The thing that frightens me about the modern world is that it is becoming more and more like a machine.
I am not a pacifist, but I believe that war is a terrible evil.
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.
It is a good thing that we have a tradition of free speech in this country, but it is a pity that so few people take advantage of it.
I am not a pessimist, but I do believe that the future is going to be very difficult.
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
I believe that the common man is more intelligent than the intellectuals give him credit for.
The most important thing is to be honest with yourself, even if it hurts.
The great thing about writing is that it allows you to escape from the present.
I am not a religious man, but I do believe in the importance of morality.
The only way to keep your integrity is to be prepared to lose everything.
The greatest evil is not to be found in the actions of bad men, but in the indifference of good men.
The trouble with England is that it is a country of snobs.
Contemporaries of George Orwell
Other Literatures born within 50 years of George Orwell (1903–1950).