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"56 George Orwell Quotes & Sayings

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Born: June 25, 1903 Died: January 21, 1950 | Novelist |

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Present Control Future Past
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War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.

Being Dead Good Good Human
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Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

Hunger Nationalism Power Self-Deception
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All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Animals Equal More Others
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On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

Beings Good Human Human Beings
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Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.

Bound Disregard Fair Fair Play
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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.

Animals Cannot Catch Consumes
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But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
Also Corrupt Corrupts Language
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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.

Aims Between Clear Enemy
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Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

Duty First Intelligent Men
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It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.
Also Constantly Good Like
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Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

Acceptance Exist Happiness Only
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Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

About Bring Chaos Connected
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If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

Anything Hear Liberty Means
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Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

Accepting Beliefs Both Contradictory
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In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.
Age Folly Hatred Issues
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In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Defense Largely Our Our Time
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Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

Liberal Power Without Worshipper
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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.

About Atrocities Capacity Committed
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The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

Being Being Human Does Essence
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No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.
Altogether Back His Look
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Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Appearance Designed Give Language
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War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Freedom Ignorance Peace Slavery
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The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.
Concept Fading History Lies
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Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

Always Invincible Moment Seem
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One can love a child, perhaps, more deeply than one can love another adult, but it is rash to assume that the child feels any love in return.

Adult Another Any Assume
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Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.

Adult Age Eight Expose
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If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?

Advantage Any Appears Cannot
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To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

About Actual Cities Civilization
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One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.
Dictatorship Does Establish Makes
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No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.

Advance Brought Equality Ever
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We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.

Find Food Long Long Run
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Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Else Follows Four Freedom
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I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

Dirt Eternal Eternal Vigilance Liberty
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Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.
Assume Be Happy Happiness Happy
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A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

Destroy Does Exists Felt
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Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

Always Guilty Innocent Judged
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Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

Correctly Early Event Ever
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If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

Boot Face Forever Future
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Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.

Battle Battles Been Lost
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Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.
Amount Balance Fair Fair Amount
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Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.

Development Good Men Only
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Serious sport is war minus the shooting.

Minus Serious Shooting Sport
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People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

Because Beds Behalf Men
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The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

Ending Lose Quickest Way War
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There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

Believe Could Ideas Intelligent
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Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

Always Beings Demand Get
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The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.

Been Facts Foresee Future
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Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie... a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

Dirty Every Funny Joke
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There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.

Always Difference Hardly Less
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George Orwell Quotes & Sayings