George Orwell

Probably the best nonsense poetry is produced gradually and accidentally, by communities rather than by individuals.

George Orwell

Progress and reaction have both turned out to be swindles. Seemingly, there is nothing left but quietism – robbing reality of its terrors by simply submitting to it.

George Orwell

Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feeling whatever.

George Orwell

Public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law.

George Orwell

Real power is achieved when the ruling class controls the material essentials of life, granting and withholding them from the masses as if they were privileges.

George Orwell

Records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth.

George Orwell

Rich people are poor people with money.

George Orwell

Rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon – so long as there is no answer to it – gives claws to the weak.

George Orwell

Right thinking will be rewarded, wrong thinking punished.

George Orwell

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent, but the tests that have to be applied to them are not, of course, the same in all cases.

George Orwell