George Orwell

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

George Orwell

People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has a man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases? ‘Natural’ death, almost by defintion, means something slow, smelly and painful.

George Orwell

Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.

George Orwell

Politically, Swift was one of those people who are driven into a sort of perverse toryism by the follies of the progressive party of the moment.

George Orwell

Politics is the choice between the lesser of two evils.

George Orwell

Poverty is spiritual halitosis.

George Orwell

Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

George Orwell

Power-worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

George Orwell

Preventive war is a crime not easily committed by a country that retains any traces of democracy.

George Orwell

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.

George Orwell