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
Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice. – George Orwell
Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. – George Orwell
To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization. – George Orwell
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. – George Orwell
Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism. – George Orwell
Those who ‘abjure’ violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf. – George Orwell
The intellectual is different from the ordinary man, but only in certain sections of his personality, and even then not all the time. – George Orwell
No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer. – George Orwell
All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. – George Orwell
Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. – 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
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history. – George Orwell
So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot. – George Orwell
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever. – George Orwell
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. – George Orwell
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. – George Orwell
Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. – George Orwell