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Except For The Small Revolutionary Groups Which Exist In All Countries, The Whole World Was Determined Upon Preventing Revolution In Spain. In Particular The Communist Party, With Soviet Russia Behind It, Had Thrown Its Whole Weight Against The Revolution. It Was The Communist Thesis That Revolution At This Stage Would Be Fatal And That What Was To Be Aimed At In Spain Was Not Workers' Control, But Bourgeois Democracy. It Hardly Needs Pointing Out Why 'liberal' Capitalist Opinion Took The Same Line.

-George Orwell

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Except For The Small

George Orwell

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Except For The Small Revolutionary Groups Which Exist In All Countries, The Whole World Was Determined Upon Preventing Revolution In Spain. In Particular The Communist Party, With Soviet Russia Behind It, Had Thrown Its Whole Weight Against The Revolution. It Was The Communist Thesis That Revolution At This Stage Would Be Fatal And That What Was To Be Aimed At In Spain Was Not Workers' Control, But Bourgeois Democracy. It Hardly Needs Pointing Out Why 'liberal' Capitalist Opinion Took The Same Line.

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No One Is Patriotic About Taxes.

Objective Considerations Of Contemporary Phenomena Compel The Conclusion That Success Or Failure In Competitive Activities Exhibits No Tendency To Be Commensurate With Innate Capacity, But That A Considerable Element Of The Unpredictable Must Invaria.

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You're Only A Rebel From The Waist Downwards,' He Told Her.

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Bad Writers Are Nearly Always Haunted By The Notion That Latin Or Greek Words Are Grander Than Saxon Ones.

All Political Thinking For Years Past Has Been Vitiated In The Same Way. People Can Foresee The Future Only When It Coincides With Their Own Wishes, And The Most Grossly Obvious Facts Can Be Ignored When They Are Unwelcome.

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And The Bigger The Fall, The Bigger The Joke. It Would Be Better Fun To Throw A Custard Pie At A Bishop Than At A Curate.

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The Real Power, The Power We Have To Fight For Night And Day, Is Not Power Over Things, But Over Men

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The Way To Make A Million Dollars Is To Start A Religion.

Million Dollars

A Dirty Joke Is A Sort Of Mental Rebellion.

They Could Be Made To Accept The Most Flagrant Violations Of Reality, Because They Never Fully Grasped The Enormity Of What Was Demanded Of Them, And Were Not Sufficiently Interested In Public Events To Notice What Was Happening

Never, For Any Reason On Earth, Could You Wish For An Increase In Pain. Of Pain You Could Wish Only One Thing: That It Should Stop.

The Further A Society Drifts From Truth The More It Will Hate Those Who Speak It.

To Survive It Is Often Necessary To Fight And To Fight You Have To Dirty Yourself.

For After All, What Is There Behind, Except Money? Money For The Right Kind Of Education, Money For Influential Friends, Money For Leisure And Peace Of Mind, Money For Trips To Italy. Money Writes Books, Money Sells Them. Give Me Not Righteousness, O Lord, Give Me Money, Only Money.

The Communism Of The English Intellectual Is Something Explicable Enough. It Is The Patriotism Of The Deracinated.

Processions, Meetings, Military Parades, Lectures, Waxwork Displays, Film Shows, Telescreen Programs All Had To Be Organized; Stands Had To Be Erected, Effigies Built, Slogans Coined, Songs Written, Rumours Circulated, Photographs Faked.

Windmill Or No Windmill, He Said, Life Would Go On As It Had Always Gone On--that Is, Badly.

It Is A Mysterious Thing, The Loss Of Faith—as Mysterious As Faith Itself.

Mysterious Things

A Totalitarian State Is In Effect A Theocracy, And Its Ruling Caste, In Order To Keep Its Position, Has To Be Thought Of As Infallible. But Since, In Practice, No One Is Infallible, It Is Frequently Necessary To Rearrange Past Events In Order To Show That This Or That Mistake Was Not Made, Or That This Or That Imaginary Triumph Actually Happened.

He Loved Big Brother.

Clover Was A Stout Motherly Mare Approaching Middle Life, Who Had Never Quite Got Her Figure Back After Her Fourth Foal.

Ignorance And Prejudice Are The Ballast Of Our Ship Of State - However, Ships Without Ballast Are Not Seaworthy And Cannot Sail In The Tempests, Nor Reach A Safe Harbor.

The Object Of Powder Is Powder.

I Am Well Acquainted With All The Arguments Against Freedom Of Thought And Speech - The Arguments Which Claim That It Cannot Exist, And The Arguments Which Claim That It Ought Not To. I Answer Simply That They Don't Convince Me And That Our Civilization Over A Period Of Four Hundred Years Has Been Founded On The Opposite Notice.

It Was A Bright Cold Day In April, And The Clocks Were Striking Thirteen.

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On A Ruinous Wall I Came Upon A Poster Dating From The Previous Year And Announcing That ‘six Handsome Bulls’ Would Be Killed In The Arena On Such And Such A Date. How Forlorn Its Faded Colours Looked. Where Were The Handsome Bulls And The Handsome Bull-fighters Now? It Appeared That Even In Barcelona There Were Hardly Any Bullfights Nowadays - For Some Reason All The Best Matadors Were Fascists.

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We Shall Meet In The Place Where There Is No Darkness.

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Good Writing Is Like A Windowpane.

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Self Confidence

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"a Minority Of One"... The Definition Of Insanity.

He Was Conscious Of Nothing Except The Blankness Of The Page In Front Of Him, The Itching Of The Skin Above His Ankle, The Blaring Of The Music, And A Slight Booziness Caused By The Gin.

I Loathed The Game, And Since I Could See No Pleasure Or Usefulness In It, It Was Very Difficult For Me To Show Courage At It. Football, It Seemed To Me, Is Not Really Played For The Pleasure Of Kicking A Ball About, But Is A Species Of Fighting.

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...the Object Of Waging A War Is Always To Be In A Better Position In Which To Wage Another War.

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.

No One Believes More Firmly Than Comrade Napoleon That All Animals Are Equal. He Would Be Only Too Happy To Let You Make Your Decisions For Yourselves. But Sometimes You Might Make The Wrong Decisions, Comrades, And Then Where Should We Be?

Roughly Speaking, The More One Pays For Food, The More Sweat And Spittle One Is Obliged To Eat With It.... Dirtiness Is Inherent In Hotels And Restaurants, Because Sound Food Is Sacrificed To Punctuality And Smartness.

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I Had Been In London Innumerable Times, And Yet Till That Day I Had Never Noticed One Of The Worst Things About London-the Fact That It Costs Money Even To Sit Down.

He Was Alone. The Past Was Dead, The Future Was Unimaginable.

The Planting Of A Tree, Especially One Of The Long-living Hardwood Trees, Is A Gift Which You Can Make To Posterity At Almost No Cost And With Almost No Trouble, And If The Tree Takes Root It Will Far Outlive The Visible Effect Of Any Of Your Other Actions, Good Or Evil.

Recently I Was Reading Somewhere Or Other An Italian Curio-dealer Who Attempted To Sell A 17th Century Crucifix To J.p. Morgan. Inside It Was Concealed A Stiletto. What A Perfect Symbol Of The Christian Religion.

The More Intelligent, The Less Sane

Ignorance In 1984

The Slovenliness Of Our Language Makes It Easier For Us To Have Foolish Thoughts.

Confession Is Not Betrayal. What You Say Or Do Doesn't Matter; Only Feelings Matter. If They Could Make Me Stop Loving You-that Would Be The Real Betrayal.

Almost As Swiftly As He Had Imagined It, She Had Torn Her Clothes Off, And When She Flung Them Aside It Was With That Same Magnificent Gesture By Which A Whole Civilization Seemed To Be Annihilated.

Mrs Weaver Nosed Among The Books, Too Dim-witted To Grasp That They Were In Alphabetical Order.

Myths Which Are Believed In Tend To Become True.

In This Country, Intellectual Cowardice Is The Worst Enemy A Writer Or Journalist Has To Face ... Unpopular Ideas Can Be Silenced, And Incovenient Facts Kept Dark, Without The Need For Any Official Ban ... At Any Given Moment There Is An Orthodoxy, A Body Of Iedas Which It Is Assumed That All Right-thinking People Will Accept Without Question.

I Do Not Think One Can Assess A Writer's Motives Without Knowing Something Of His Early Development. His Subject Matter Will Be Determined By The Age He Lives In ... But Before He Ever Begins To Write He Will Have Acquired An Emotional Attitude From Which He Will Never Completely Escape.

His Answer To Every Problem, Every Setback Was “i Will Work Harder!” —which He Had Adopted As His Personal Motto.

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?

A Man Who Gives A Good Account Of Himself Is Probably Lying, Since Any Life When Viewed From The Inside Is Simply A Series Of Defeats.

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If I Had To Make A List Of Six Books Which Were To Be Preserved When All Others Were Destroyed, I Would Certainly Put Gulliver's Travels Among Them.

Sanity Is Not Statistical.

Does Big Brother Exist?" "of Course He Exists. The Party Exists. Big Brother Is The Embodiment Of The Party." "does He Exist In The Same Way As I Exist?" "you Do Not Exist.

Why Was It That They Could Never Shout Like That About Anything That Mattered?

In A Society In Which There Is No Law, And In Theory No Compulsion, The Only Arbiter Of Behaviour Is Public Opinion. But Public Opinion, Because Of The Tremendous Urge To Conformity In Gregarious Animals, Is Less Tolerant Than Any System Of Law. When Human Beings Are Governed By "thou Shalt Not", The Individual Can Practise A Certain Amount Of Eccentricity: When They Are Supposedly Governed By "love" Or "reason", He Is Under Continuous Pressure To Make Him Behave And Think In Exactly The Same Way As Everyone Else.

Revolutions Only Effect A Radical Improvement When The Masses Are Alert And Know How To Chuck Out Their Leaders As Soon As The Latter Have Done Their Job.

There Were Times When The Fact Of Impending Death Seemed As Palpable As The Bed They Lay On, And They Would Cling Together With A Sort Of Despairing Sensuality, Like A Damned Soul Grasping At His Last Morsel Of Pleasure When The Clock Is Within Five Minutes Of Striking. But There Were Also Times When They Had The Illusion Not Only Of Safety But Of Permanence.

The Child Thinks Of Growing Old As An Almost Obscene Calamity, Which For Some Mysterious Reason Will Never Happen To Itself. All Who Have Passed The Age Of Thirty Are Joyless Grotesques, Endlessly Fussing About Things Of No Importance And Staying Alive Without, So Far As The Child Can See, Having Anything To Live For. Only Child Life Is Real Life.

The Birds Sang, The Proles Sang. The Party Did Not Sing. All Round The World, In London And New York, In Africa And Brazil, And In The Mysterious, Forbidden Lands Beyond The Frontiers, In The Streets Of Paris And Berlin, In The Villages Of The Endless Russian Plain, In The Bazaars Of China And Japan — Everywhere Stood The Same Solid Unconquerable Figure, Made Monstrous By Work And Childbearing, Toiling From Birth To Death And Still Singing.

Records Told The Same Tale, Then The Lie Passed Into History And Became Truth.

Journalism Is Printing What Someone Else Does Not Want Printed: Everything Else Is Public Relations.

Oceania Was At War With Eurasia; Therefore Oceania Had Always Been At War With Eurasia.

The Mute Protest In Your Own Bones

All Art Is Propaganda.

Dickens Is One Of Those Authors Who Are Well Worth Stealing.

Some People Have A Knack, For Example, Of Being Able To Tell When Someone's Lying To Them. They May Not Know What The Truth Is, But They Can Tell When Someone Is Trying To Lead Them Astray Or Sell Them Something Shady. I Think He Had That Ability To An Amazing Degree. I Also Think He Thought, Without Saying It Explicitly, That You Can Convince A Crowd Of Something That's Not True More Easily Than You Can One Person At A Time.

[political] Prose Consists Less And Less Of Words Chosen For The Sake Of Their Meaning, And More And More Of Phrases Tacked Together Like The Sections Of A Prefabricated Hen-house.

Political Language

A Hideous Ecstasy Of Fear And Vindictiveness, A Desire To Kill, To Torture, To Smash Faces In With A Sledge Hammer, Seemed To Flow Through The Whole Group Of People Like An Electric Current, Turning One Even Against One's Will Into A Grimacing, Screaming Lunatic. And Yet The Rage That One Felt Was An Abstract, Undirected Emotion Which Could Be Switched From One Object To Another Like The Flame Of A Blowlamp.

...the Consciousness Of Being At War, And Therefore In Danger, Makes The Handing-over Of All Power To A Small Caste Seem The Natural, Unavoidable Condition Of Survival.

Political Writing In Our Time Consists Almost Entirely Of Prefabricated Phrases Bolted Together Like The Pieces Of A Child's Meccano Set. It Is The Unavoidable Result Of Self-censorship. To Write In Plain, Vigorous Language One Has To Think Fearlessly, And If One Thinks Fearlessly One Cannot Be Politically Orthodox.

The Human Beings Did Not Hate Animal Farm Any Less Now That It Was Prospering; Indeed, They Hated It More Than Ever.

I Am Struck Again By The Fact That As Soon As A Working Man Gets An Official Post In The Trade Union Or Goes Into Labour Politics, He Becomes Middle-class Whether He Will Or No. Ie. By Fighting Against The Bourgeoisie He Becomes A Bourgeois. The Fact Is That You Cannot Help Living In The Manner Appropriate And Developing The Ideology Appropriate To Your Income.

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.

Political Language

At Any Given Moment There Is An Orthodoxy, A Body Of Ideas Of Which It Is Assumed That All Right-thinking People Will Accept Without Question. It Is Not Exactly Forbidden To Say This, That Or The Other, But It Is 'not Done' To Say It... Anyone Who Challenges The Prevailing Orthodoxy Finds Himself Silenced With Surprising Effectiveness. A Genuinely Unfashionable Opinion Is Almost Never Given A Fair Hearing, Either In The Popular Press Or In The High-brow Periodicals.

Sheer Egoism... Writers Share This Characteristic With Scientists, Artists, Politicians, Lawyers, Soldiers, Successful Businessmen - In Short, With The Whole Top Crust Of Humanity.

I Have Tipped Waiters, And I Have Been Tipped By Waiters.

A Generation Of The Unteachable Is Hanging Upon Us Like A Necklace Of Corpses.

He Wondered Vaguely Whether In The Abolished Past It Had Been A Normal Experience To Lie In Bed Like This, In The Cool Of A Summer Evening, A Man And A Woman With No Clothes On, Making Love When They Chose, Talking Of What They Chose, Not Feeling Any Compulsion To Get Up, Simply Lying There And Listening To Peaceful Sounds Outside. Surely There Could Never Have Been A Time When That Seemed Ordinary?

There Are Some Things Only Intellectuals Are Crazy Enough To Believe.

For A Creative Writer Possession Of The 'truth' Is Less Important Than Emotional Sincerity.

You Preferred To Be A Lunatic, A Minority Of One.

The Fight Against Bad English Is Not Frivolous.

Napoleon Is Always Right.

A Man May Take To Drink Because He Feels Himself To Be A Failure, But Then Fail All The More Completely Because He Drinks.

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.

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