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
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.
writing window-panes should
Good prose should be transparent, like a window pane.
work progress illusion
Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.
writing effort leaving
By using stale metaphors, similes and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself.
force tyranny fraud
All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.
nineteen april cold
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
brother struggle taken
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother
education past thinking
Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past." "He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past.
dream peace time
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
attitude book mind
There are books that one reads over and over again, books that become part of the furniture of one’s mind and alter one’s whole attitude to life, books that one dips into but never reads through, books that one reads at a single sitting and forgets a week later:
truth freedom knowledge
Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.
freedom war ignorance
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
courage truth struggle
To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.
mad minorities world
Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.