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
wings fire people
So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot.
memorial-day ideas evil
All that was required of them (i.e. the brain-washed masses) was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.
break bigs ifs
If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones.
memories past agree-upon
The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon.
order revolution doe
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.
color atrocities-committed patriotism
Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage-torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians-which does not change its moral color when it is committed by 'our' side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
opposites devotion conservatism
Patriotism has nothing to do with Conservatism. It is actually the opposite of Conservatism, since it is a devotion to something that is always changing and yet is felt to be mystically the same.
strength wisdom veterans-day
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
country money war
War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
peace political-language atrocities-committed
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
integrity sacrifice political
[T]he more one is conscious of one's political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one's aesthetic and intellectual integrity.
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 .
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.