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Under The Spreading Chestnut Tree I Sold You And You Sold Me--
-George Orwell
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Under The Spreading Chestnut

George Orwell
...
Under The Spreading Chestnut Tree I Sold You And You Sold Me--

Understanding the Quote: "under the spreading chestnut tree i sold you and you sold me--..."

This quote by George Orwell reflects deeply on the theme of tree. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Tree, Nineteen, Chestnuts, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how George Orwell interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About George Orwell

George Orwell is celebrated for insightful thoughts on tree and nineteen. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Tree
Nineteen
Chestnuts
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To A Surprising Extent The War-lords In Shining Armour, The Apostles Of Martial Virtues, Tend Not To Die Fighting When Time Comes. History Is Full Of Ignominious Getaways By The Great And Famous.
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A Society Becomes Totalitarian When Its Structure Becomes Flagrantly Artificial: That Is, When Its Ruling Class Has Lost Its Function But Succeeds In Clinging To Power By Force Or Fraud.
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You Believe That Reality Is Something Objective, External, Existing In Its Own Right. You Also Believe That The Nature Of Reality Is Self-evident. When You Delude Yourself Into Thinking That You See Something, You Assume That Everyone Else Sees The Same Thing As You. But I Tell You, Winston, That Reality Exists In The Human Mind, And Nowhere Else. Not In The Individual Mind, Which Can Make Mistakes, And In Any Case Soon Perishes: Only In The Mind Of The Paty, Which Is Collective And Immortal.
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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.
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At Any Given Moment There Is An Orthodoxy, A Body Of Ideas Which It Is Assumed That All Right-thinking People Will Accept Without Question.
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All Art Is Propaganda; On The Other Hand, Not All Propaganda Is Art.
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For If Leisure And Security Were Enjoyed By All Alike, The Great Mass Of Human Beings Who Are Normally Stupefied By Poverty Would Become Literate And Would Learn To Think For Themselves; And When Once They Had Done This, They Would Sooner Or Later Realise That The Privileged Minority Had No Function, And They Would Sweep It Away. In The Long Run, A Hierarchical Society Was Only Possible On A Basis Of Poverty And Ignorance.
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But It Was All Right, Everything Was All Right, The Struggle Was Finished. He Had Won The Victory Over Himself. He Loved Big Brother.
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The Citizen Of Oceania Is Not Allowed To Know Anything Of The Tenets Of The Other Two Philosophies, But He Is Taught To Execrate Them As Barbarous Outrages Upon Morality And Common Sense. Actually, The Three Philosophies Are Barely Distinguishable.
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A Scrupulous Writer In Every Sentence That He Writes Will Ask Himself. . . What Am I Trying To Say? What Words Will Express It?...and He Probably Asks Himself. . . Could I Put It More Shortly? But You Are Not Obliged To Go To All This Trouble. You Can Shirk It By Simply Throwing Open Your Mind And Letting The Ready-made Phrases Come Crowding In. They Will Construct Your Sentences For You
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On Each Landing, Opposite The Lift Shaft, The Poster With The Enormous Face Gazed From The Wall. It Was One Of Those Pictures Which Are So Contrived That The Eyes Follow You About When You Move. Big Brother Is Watching You, The Caption Beneath It Ran.
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To Die Hating Them, That Was Freedom.
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Reality Is Inside The Skull.
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There Is Only One Way To Make Money At Writing, And That Is To Marry A Publisher's Daughter.
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Now He Had Recognized Himself As A Dead Man It Became Important To Stay Alive As Long As Possible.
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War Is A Way Of Shattering To Pieces... Materials Which Might Otherwise Be Used To Make The Masses Too Comfortable And... Too Intelligent.
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There Was Of Course No Way Of Knowing Whether You Were Being Watched At Any Given Moment. How Often, Or On What System, The Thought Police Plugged In On Any Individual Wire Was Guesswork. It Was Even Conceivable That They Watched Everybody All The Time. But At Any Rate They Could Plug In Your Wire Whenever They Wanted To. You Had To Live-did Live, From Habit That Became Instinct-in The Assumption That Every Sound You Made Was Overheard, And, Except In Darkness, Every Movement Scrutinized.
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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.
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The Problem Was How To Keep The Wheels Of Industry Turning Without Increasing The Real Wealth Of The World. Goods Must Be Produced, But They Must Not Be Distributed. And In Practice The Only Way Of Achieving This Was By Continuous Warfare.
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Writing A Book Is A Horrible, Exhausting Struggle, Like A Long Bout Of Some Painful Illness.
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The Stars Are A Free Show; It Don’t Cost Anything To Use Your Eyes
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The Result Of This Is That So-called Peace Propaganda Is Just As Dishonest And Intellectually Disgusting As War Propaganda. Like War Propaganda, It Concentrates On Putting Forward A ‘case’, Obscuring The Opponent’s Point Of View And Avoiding Awkward Questions.
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To Survive It Is Often Necessary To Fight And To Fight You Have To Dirty Yourself.
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In Our Time, Political Speech And Writing Are Largely The Defense Of The Indefensible. Things Like The Continuance Of British Rule In India, The Russian Purges And Deportations, The Dropping Of The Atom Bombs On Japan, Can Indeed Be Defended, But Only By Arguments Which Are Too Brutal For Most People To Face, And Which Do Not Square With The Professed Aims Of The Political Parties. Thus Political Language Has To Consist Largely Of Euphemism, Question-begging And Sheer Cloudy Vagueness.
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Think Of Something You Really Care About. Then Add Hour To Hour And Calculate The Fraction Of Your Life That You've Actually Spent In Doing It. And Then Calculate The Time You've Spent On Things Like Shaving, Riding To And Fro On Buses, Waiting In Railway Junctions, Swapping Dirty Stories, And Reading The Newspapers.
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Thoughtcrime Was Not A Thing That Could Be Concealed Forever. You Might Dodge Successfully For A While, Even For Years, But Sooner Or Later They Were Bound To Get You.
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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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Happiness Can Only Exist In Acceptance.
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In The Face Of Pain There Are No Heroes.
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It Was Terribly Dangerous To Let Your Thoughts Wander When You Were In Any Public Place Or Within Range Of A Telescreen. The Smallest Thing Could Give You Away. A Nervous Tic, An Unconscious Look Of Anxiety, A Habit Of Muttering To Yourself-anything That Carried With It The Suggestion Of Abnormality, Of Having Something To Hide. In Any Case, To Wear An Improper Expression On Your Face ... Was Itself A Punishable Offense. There Was Even A Word For It In Newspeak: Facecrime.
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In Any Form Of Art Designed To Appeal To Large Numbers Of People,...[t]he Rich Man Is Usually 'bad', And His Machinations Are Invariably Frustrated.:; 'good Poor Man Defeats Bad Rich Man' Is An Accepted Formula.
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His Whole Mind And Body Seemed To Be Afflicted With An Unbearable Sensitivity, A Sort Of Transparency, Which Made Every Movement, Every Sound, Every Contact, Every Word That He Had To Speak Or Listen To, An Agony. Even In Sleep He Could Not Altogether Escape Form Her Image.
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Records Told The Same Tale, Then The Lie Passed Into History And Became Truth.
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He Gazed Up At The Enormous Face. Forty Years It Had Taken Him To Learn What Kind Of Smile Was Hidden Beneath The Dark Moustache. O Cruel, Needless Misunderstanding! O Stubborn, Self-willed Exile From The Loving Breast! Two Gin-scented Tears Trickled Down The Sides Of His Nose. But It Was All Right, Everything Was All Right, The Struggle Was Finished. He Had Won The Victory Over Himself. He Loved Big Brother
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It Was A Bright Cold Day In April, And The Clocks Were Striking Thirteen.
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Rich People Are Poor People With Money.
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Facts, At Any Rate, Could Not Be Kept Hidden. They Could Be Tracked Down By Inquiry, They Could Be Squeezed Out Of You By Torture. But If The Object Was Not To Stay Alive But To Stay Human, What Difference Did It Ultimately Make? They Could Not Alter Your Feelings, For That Matter You Could Not Alter Them Yourself, Even If You Wanted To. They Could Lay Bare In The Utmost Detail Everything That You Had Done Or Said Or Thought; But The Inner Heart, Whose Workings Were Mysterious Even To Yourself, Remained Impregnable.
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Take Pleasure In The Impact Of One Sound On Another.
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My Best Fishing-memory Is About Some Fish That I Never Caught.
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The Most Effective Way To Destroy People Is To Deny And Obliterate Their Own Understanding Of Their History.
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Surely, Comrades, You Don't Want Jones Back?
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We Shall Abolish The Orgasm. Our Neurologists Are At Work Upon It Now.
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For The Future. For The Unborn.
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To Know And Not To Know, To Be Conscious Of Complete Truthfulne­ss While Telling Carefully Constructe­d Lies, To Hold Simultaneo­usly Two Opinions Which Cancelled Out, Knowing Them To Be Contradict­ory And Believing In Both Of Them, To Use Logic Against Logic, To Repudiate Morality While Laying Claim To It, To Believe That Democracy Was Impossible And That The Party Was The Guardian Of Democracy.
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The Choice For Mankind Lies Between Freedom And Happiness And For The Great Bulk Of Mankind, Happiness Is Better.
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It Was Not By Making Yourself Heard But By Staying Sane That You Carried On The Human Heritage.
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Even Through The Shut Window Pane, The World Looked Cold.
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England Is Perhaps The Only Great Country Whose Intellectuals Are Ashamed Of Their Own Nationality. In Left-wing Circles It Is Always Felt That There Is Something Slightly Disgraceful In Being An Englishman And That It Is A Duty To Snigger At Every English Institution, From Horse Racing To Suet Puddings. It Is A Strange Fact, But It Is Unquestionably True That Almost Any English Intellectual Would Feel More Ashamed Of Standing To Attention During God Save The King Than Of Stealing From A Poor Box.
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We Were Once Told That The Aeroplane Had "abolished Frontiers"; Actually It Is Only Since The Aeroplane Became A Serious Weapon That Frontiers Have Become Definitely Impassable.
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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.
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Enlightened People Seldom Or Never Possess A Sense Of Responsibility.
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Preventive War Is A Crime Not Easily Committed By A Country That Retains Any Traces Of Democracy.
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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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As Soon As You Think Of Fishing You Think Of Things That Don't Belong To The Modern World. The Very Idea Of Sitting All Day Under A Willow Tree Beside A Quiet Pool - And Being Able To Find A Quiet Pool To Sit Beside- Belongs To A Time Before The War, Before Radio, Before Aeroplanes, Before Hitler.
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In A Time Of Universal Deceit - Telling The Truth Is A Revolutionary Act.
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The Animals Were Happy As They Had Never Conceived It Possible To Be. Every Mouthful Of Food Was An Acute Positive Pleasure, Now That It Was Truly Their Own Food, Produced By Themselves And For Themselves, Not Doled Out To Them By A Grudging Master.
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It's A Wonderful Feeling To Have A Niece Like You Because You Are Always So Dear You Are So Dear No Matter The Year But All Throughout Each Day Of The Year There Could Hardly Be A Town In The South Of England Where You Could Throw A Brick Without Hitting The Niece Of A Bishop.
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Comrades!' He Cried. 'you Do Not Imagine, I Hope, That We Pigs Are Doing This In A Spirit Of Selfishness And Privilege? Many Of Us Actually Dislike Milk And Apples. I Dislike Them Myself. Our Sole Object In Taking These Things Is To Preserve Our Health. Milk And Apples (this Has Been Proved By Science, Comrades) Contain Substances Absolutely Necessary To The Well-being Of A Pig. We Pigs Are Brainworkers. The Whole Management And Organisation Of This Farm Depend On Us. Day And Night We Are Watching Over Your Welfare. It Is For Your Sake That We Drink The Milk And Eat Those Apples.
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Whatever Goes Upon Two Legs Is An Enemy. Whatever Goes Upon Four Legs, Or Has Wings, Is A Friend.
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He Would Say That God Had Given Him A Tail To Keep The Flies Off, But That He Would Sooner Have Had No Tail And No Flies.
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Winston Was Gelatinous With Fatigue.
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Literature
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Until They Became Conscious They Will Never Rebel, And Until After They Have Rebelled They Cannot Become Conscious.
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As With The Christian Religion, The Worst Advertisement For Socialism Is Its Adherents.
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Many People Genuinely Do Not Want To Be Saints, And It Is Probable That Some Who Achieve Or Aspire To Sainthood Have Never Felt Much Temptation To Be Human Beings.
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In The End I Worked Out An Anarchistic Theory That All Government Is Evil, That The Punishment Always Does More Harm Than The Crime And That People Can Be Trusted To Behave Decently If Only You Will Let Them Alone.
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People
The Urge To Shout Filthy Words At The Top Of His Voice Was As Strong As Ever.
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Profanity
Of Pain You Could Wish Only One Thing: That It Should Stop. Nothing In The World Was So Bad As Physical Pain. In The Face Of Pain There Are No Heroes.
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...every Human Being Is Doomed To Die, Which Is The Greatest Of All Failures.
Humans
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Dies
The Most Stirring Battle-poem In English Is About A Brigade Of Cavalry Which Charged In The Wrong Direction.
History
Battle
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They Say That Time Heals All Things, They Say You Can Always Forget; But The Smiles And The Tears Across The Years They Twist My Heart Strings Yet!
Heart
Years
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The Clock Struck Half Past Two. In The Little Office At The Back Of Mr. Mckechnie's Bookshop, Gordon--gordon Comstock, Last Member Of The Comstock Family, Aged Twenty-nine And Rather Moth-eaten Already--lounged Across The Table, Pushing A Fourpenny Packet Of Player's Weights Open And Shut With His Thumb.
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Past
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Perhaps A Lunatic Was Simply A Minority Of One.
Insanity
Minorities
Lunatic
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Love
Writing
Heart
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Enemy
Victory
If You Ask Any Ordinary Reader Which Of Dickens's Proletarian Characters He Can Remember, The Three He Is Almost Certain To Mention Are Bill Sykes, Sam Weller And Mrs. Gamp. A Burglar, A Valet And A Drunken Midwife-not Exactly A Representative Cross-section Of The English Working Class.
Character
Class
Ordinary
Some Hams Hanging In The Kitchen Were Taken Out For Burial
Taken
Kitchen
Ham
You Can't Live Life Without Consequences. They Occur Regardless Of The Decision. A Consequence Is An Outcome, Good Or Bad. You Can Live Life Without Regrets And Thats What Makes It Worth It. Or You Could Live With Regret And End Up Hanging Yourself But Thats Still Good. You Paid For The Rope So Your Feeding Someones Family. Something To Be Proud Of Before You Kick The Bucket
Life
Regret
Decision
The Whole Experience Of Being Hit By A Bullet Is Very Interesting And I Think Worth Describing In Detail.
Thinking
Interesting
Details
If You Want A Vision Of The Future, Imagine A Boot Stamping On A Human Face - Forever.
Time
Freedom
Future
History Has To Move In A Certain Direction, Even If It Has To Be Pushed That Way By Neurotics.
Moving
History
Way
When It Comes To The Pinch, Human Beings Are Heroic.
Leadership
Courage
Empowering Others
Take Away Freedom Of Speech, And The Creative Faculties Dry Up.
Dry Up
Creative
Freedom Of Speech
I Hate Purity, I Hate Goodness! I Don't Want Virtue To Exist Anywhere. I Want Everyone To Be Corrupt To The Bones.
Hate
Want
Bones
I Have Tipped Waiters, And I Have Been Tipped By Waiters.
Waiter
Has Beens
True Freedom Is The Right To Say Something That Others Don't Want To Hear.
Want
True Freedom
Literature Is Doomed If Liberty Of Thought Perishes.
Writing
Liberty
Literature
It Was Almost Normal For People Over Thirty To Be Frightened Of Their Own Children
Children
People
Normal
The Best Books... Are Those That Tell You What You Know Already.
Book
Nineteen
Insight
To The Future Or To The Past, To A Time When Thought Is Free, When Men Are Different From One Another And Do Not Live Alone— To A Time When Truth Exists And What Is Done Cannot Be Undone: From The Age Of Uniformity, From The Age Of Solitude, From The Age Of Big Brother, From The Age Of Doublethink — Greetings!
Brother
Past
Men
You Were The Dead; Theirs Was The Future.
If Publishers And Editors Exert Themselves To Keep Certain Topics Out Of Print, It Is Not Because They Are Frightened Of Prosecution But Because They Are Frightened Of Public Opinion. In This Country Intellectual Cowardice Is The Worst Enemy A Writer Or Journalist Has To Face, And That Fact Does Not Seem To Me To Have Had The Discussion It Deserves.
Country
Worst Enemy
Editors
Saints Should Always Be Judged Guilty Until They Are Proved Innocent.
Judging
Atheism
Saint
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.
Sweat
Sound
Pay
Man Is The Only Real Enemy We Have. Remove Man From The Scene, And The Root Cause Of Hunger And Overwork Is Abolished Forever.
Real
Men
Roots
When It Comes To The Pinch, Human Beings Are Heroic. Women Face Childbed And The Scrubbing Brush, Revolutionaries Keep Their Mouths Shut In The Torture Chamber, Battleships Go Down With Their Guns Still Firing When Their Decks Are Awash.
Gun
Heroism
Mouths
Apparently Nothing Will Ever Teach These People That The Other 99 % Of The Population Exist.
People
Population
Teach
If Liberty Means Anything At All, It Means The Right To Tell People What They Do Not Want To Hear.
Inspirational
Life
Freedom
The Writers I Care About Most And Never Grow Tired Of Are: Shakespeare, Swift, Fielding, Dickens, Charles Reade, Flaubert And, Among Modern Writers, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot And D. H. Lawrence. But I Believe The Modern Writer Who Has Influenced Me Most Is Somerset Maugham, Whom I Admire Immensely For His Power Of Telling A Story Straightforwardly And Without Frills.
Believe
Tired
Stories
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.
Children
Writing
Thinking
It Is A Mysterious Thing, The Loss Of Faith—as Mysterious As Faith Itself.
Loss
Mysterious Things
Mysterious
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.
Soccer
Football
Fighting
The Plant Is Blind But It Knows Enough To Keep Pushing Upwards Towards The Light, And It Will Continue To Do This In The Face Of Endless Discouragements.
Light
Faces
Pushing
Bad Writers Are Nearly Always Haunted By The Notion That Latin Or Greek Words Are Grander Than Saxon Ones.
Latin
Greek
Notion
We Are In A Strange Period Of History In Which A Revolutionary Has To Be A Patriot And A Patriot Has To Be A Revolutionary.
Strange
Revolutionary
Patriot
This Life We Live Nowadays. It's Not Life, It's Stagnation Death-in-life. Look At All These Bloody Houses And The Meaningless People Inside Them. Sometimes I Think We're All Corpses. Just Rotting Upright.
Thinking
People
House
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.
Years
Opposites
Civilization
During Five Literary Generations Every Enlightened Person Had Despised Him, And At The End Of That Time Nine-tenths Of Those Enlightened Persons Are Forgotten And Kipling Is In Some Sense Still There.
Art
Generations
Nine
I Managed To Get My Copy Of Ulysses Through Safely This Time. I Rather Wish I Had Never Read It. It Gives Me An Inferiority Complex. When I Read A Book Like That And Then Come Back To My Own Work, I Feel Like A Eunuch Who Has Taken A Course In Voice Production.
Book
Taken
Voice
Perhaps One Did Not Want To Be Loved So Much As To Be Understood.
Love
Relationship
Marriage
The Books One Reads In Childhood, And Perhaps Most Of All The Bad And Good Bad Books, Create In One's Mind A Sort Of False Map Of The World, A Series Of Fabulous Countries Into Which One Can Retreat At Odd Moments Throughout The Rest Of Life, And Which In Some Cases Can Survive A Visit To The Real Countries Which They Are Supposed To Represent.
Country
Real
Book
The People Will Believe What The Media Tells Them They Believe.
Believe
Media
People
When I Joined The Militia I Had Promised Myself To Kill One Fascist - After All, If Each Of Us Killed One They Would Soon Be Extinct.
Revolutionary
Fascists
Militia
The Typical Socialist... A Prim Little Man With A White-collar Job, Usually A Secret Teetotaler And Often With Vegetarian Leanings.
Jobs
Men
White
The Process [of Mass-media Deception] Has To Be Conscious, Or It Would Not Be Carried Out With Sufficient Precision, But It Also Has To Be Unconscious, Or It Would Bring With It A Feeling Of Falsity And Hence Of Guilt.... To Tell Deliberate Lies While Genuinely Believing In Them, To Forget Any Fact That Has Become Inconvenient, And Then, When It Becomes Necessary Again, To Draw It Back From Oblivion For Just So Long As It Is Needed, To Deny The Existence Of Objective Reality And All The While To Take Account Of The Reality Which One Denies All This Is Indispensably Necessary.
Truth
Lying
Believe
If Thought Corrupts Language, Language Can Also Corrupt Thought. A Bad Usage Can Spread By Tradition And Imitation Even Among People Who Should And Do Know Better.
People
Language
Tradition
From A Very Early Age, Perhaps The Age Of Five Or Six, I Knew That When I Grew Up I Should Be A Writer. Between The Ages Of About Seventeen And Twenty-four I Tried To Abandon This Idea, But I Did So With The Consciousness That I Was Outraging My True Nature And That Sooner Or Later I Should Have To Settle Down And Write Books.
Book
Writing
Should Have
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.
Pain
Wish
Earth
Now I Will Tell You The Answer To My Question. It Is This. The Party Seeks Power Entirely For Its Own Sake. We Are Not Interested In The Good Of Others; We Are Interested Solely In Power, Pure Power.
Change
Party
Answers
Antisemitism, For Instance, Is Simply Not The Doctrine Of A Grown-up Person.
Doctrine
Instance
Persons
Donkeys Live A Long Time. None Of You Has Ever Seen A Dead Donkey.
Long
Donkey
Long Time
Never Use A Metaphor, Simile, Or Other Figure Of Speech Which You Are Used To Seeing In Print. Never Use A Long Word Where A Short One Will Do. If It Is Possible To Cut A Word Out Always Cut It Out. Never Use The Passive Voice Where You Can Use The Active. Never Use A Foreign Phrase A Scientific Word Or A Jargon Word If You Can Think Of An Everyday English Equivalent. Break Any Of These Rules Sooner Than Say Anything Outright Barbarous.
Cutting
Thinking
Passive Voice
I Understand How. I Do Not Understand Why
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.
Cost
London
Facts
Do You Know Why You’re Here? Shall I Tell You Why We Brought You Here? To Cure You.to Make You Sane.
Cures
Sane
Knows
The Essential Act Of War Is Destruction, Not Necessarily Of Human Lives, But Of The Products Of Human Labor. War Is A Way Of Shattering To Pieces, Or Pouring Into The Stratosphere, Or Sinking In The Depths Of The Sea, Materials Which Might Otherwise Be Used To Make The Masses Too Comfortable, And Hence, In The Long Run, Too Intelligent.
Running
War
Intelligent
Totalitarianism, If Not Fought Against, Could Triumph Anywhere.
Believe
Triumph
Ifs
A Fat Man Is Never So Happy As When He Is Describing Himself As "robust.
Men
Obesity
Robust
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.
Strong
Simple
Gun
You Must Try Harder. It Is Not Easy To Become Sane.
Trying
Easy
Harder
Man Serves The Interests Of No Creature Except Himself.
Men
Animal
Interest
Modern English, Especially Written English, Is Full Of Bad Habits Which Spread By Imitation And Which Can Be Avoided If One Is Willing To Take The Necessary Trouble. If One Gets Rid Of These Habits One Can Think More Clearly, And To Think Clearly Is A Necessary First Step Toward Political Regeneration: So That The Fight Against Bad English Is Not Frivolous And Is Not The Exclusive Concern Of Professional [or Scholarly] Writers.
Fighting
Thinking
Political
It Was With The Last Revolution And The Coming Of Ingsoc (inglish/english Socialism) That The Latest High Learnt How To Keep Their Position Permanently - By Cultivating Ignorance Among The Other Classes And By Constantly Surveying Them Through The Thought Police. Part Of This Strategy Included The Maintenance Of A State Of Continual Warfare, Which Goldstein Discussed In The Third Chapter. The Three Major Powers Were Not Fighting This Perpetual War For Victory; They Were Fighting To Keep A State Of Emergency Always Present As The Surest Guarantee Of Authoritarianism.
War
Ignorance
Fighting
To Be Corrupted By Totalitarianism, One Does Not Have To Live In A Totalitarian Country.
Country
Doe
Totalitarianism
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.
Wall
Years
Dating
Nationalism Is Power Hunger Tempered By Self-deception.
Power
Self
Deception
The Choice Before Human Beings, Is Not, As A Rule, Between Good And Evil But Between Two Evils.
Two
Evil
Choices
The Mass Of The Rich And The Poor Are Differentiated By Their Incomes And Nothing Else,and The Average Millionaire Is Only The Average Dishwasher Dressed In A New Suit.
Average
Income
Suits
Autobiography Is Only To Be Trusted When It Reveals Something Disgraceful.
Autobiography
Disgraceful
Trusted
For, When You Are Approaching Poverty, You Make One Discovery Which Outweighs Some Of The Others. You Discover Boredom And Mean Complications And The Beginnings Of Hunger, But You Also Discover The Great Redeeming Feature Of Poverty: The Fact That It Annihilates The Future. Within Certain Limits, It Is Actually True That The Less Money You Have, The Less You Worry.
Mean
Discovery
Worry
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.
Song
Military
Lectures
The Main Motive For Nonattachment Is A Desire To Escape From The Pain Of Living, And Above All From Love, Which, Sexual Or Non-sexual, Is Hard Work.
Love
Pain
Hard Work
Myths Which Are Believed In Tend To Become True.
Truth
Political
Belief
His Answer To Every Problem, Every Setback Was “i Will Work Harder!” —which He Had Adopted As His Personal Motto.
Answers
Problem
Motto
A Thing Which I Regret, And Which I Will Try To Remedy Some Time, Is That I Have Never In My Life Planted A Walnut. Nobody Does Plant Them Nowadays-when You See A Walnut It Is Almost Invariably An Old Tree. If You Plant A Walnut You Are Planting It For Your Grandchildren, And Who Cares A Damn For His Grandchildren?
Regret
Grandchildren
Tree
The Fact Is That Every War Suffers A Kind Of Progressive Degradation With Every Month That It Continues, Because Such Things As Individual Liberty And A Truthful Press Are Simply Not Compatible With Military Efficiency.
Military
War
Suffering
Day By Day And Almost Minute By Minute The Past Was Brought Up To Date. In This Way Every Prediction Made By The Party Could Be Shown By Documentary Evidence To Have Been Correct; Nor Was Any Item Of News, Or Any Expression Of Opinion, Which Conflicted With The Needs Of The Moment, Ever Allowed To Remain On Record. All History Was A Palimpsest, Scraped Clean And Reinscribed Exactly As Often As Was Necessary.
Party
Past
Expression
Whoever Controls The Image And Information Of The Past Determines What And How Future Generations Will Think; Whoever Controls The Information And Images Of The Present Determines How Those Same People Will View The Past." "he Who Controls The Past Commands The Future. He Who Commands The Future Conquers The Past.
Education
Past
Thinking
A Dirty Joke Is A Sort Of Mental Rebellion.
Dirty
Naughty
Nasty
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.
Book
Gulliver
Lists
Patriotism Is Usually Stronger Than Class Hatred, And Always Stronger Than Internationalism.
Class
Hatred
Patriotism
By ' Patriotism ' I Mean Devotion To A Particular Place And A Particular Way Of Life , Which One Believes To Be The Best In The World But Has No Wish To Force On Other People.
Believe
Mean
People
Every Joke Is A Tiny Revolution
Humor
Tiny
Revolution
We Have Become Too Civilized To Grasp The Obvious. For The Truth Is Very Simple. To Survive You Often Have To Fight, And To Fight You Have To Dirty Yourself. War Is Evil, And It Is Often The Lesser Evil. Those Who Take The Sword Perish By The Sword, And Those Who Don't Take The Sword Perish By Smelly Diseases.
War
Dirty
Fighting
Human Beings Were Behaving As Human Beings And Not As Cogs In The Capitalist Machine.
Cogs
Machines
Capitalist
If Both The Past And The External World Exist Only In The Mind, And If The Mind Itself Is Controllable - What Then?
Past
Mind
World
It Had Become Usual To Give Napoleon The Credit For Every Successful Achievement And Every Stroke Of Good Fortune. You Would Often Hear One Hen Remark To Another, "under The Guidance Of Our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, I Have Laid Five Eggs In Six Days" Or Two Cows, Enjoying A Drink At The Pool, Would Exclaim, "thanks To The Leadership Of Comrade Napoleon, How Excellent This Water Tastes!".
Successful
Eggs
Two
[...] You Can Get Anything In This World If You Genuinely Don't Want It.
World
Want
This World
It Is The Same In All Wars; The Soldiers Do The Fighting, The Journalists Do The Shouting, And No True Patriot Ever Gets Near A Front-line Trench, Except On The Briefest Of Propaganda Tours.
War
Fighting
Soldier
If He Were Allowed Contact With Foreigners He Would Discover That They Are Creatures Similar To Himself And That Most Of What He Has Been Told About Them Is Lies. The Sealed World In Which He Lives Would Be Broken, And The Fear, Hatred And Self-righteousness On Which His Morale Depends Might Evaporate.
Lying
Hands
Egypt
What Opinions The Masses Hold, Or Do Not Hold, Is Looked Upon As A Matter Of Indifference. They Can Be Granted Intellectual Liberty Becasue They Have No Intellect.
Intellectual
Liberty
Matter
A Man May Take To Drink Because He Feels Himself To He A Failure, And Then Fail All The More Completely Because He Drinks. It Is Rather The Same Thing That Is Happening To The English Language. It Becomes Ugly And Inaccurate Because Our Thoughts Are Foolish, But The Slovenliness Of Our Language Makes It Easier For Us To Have Foolish Thoughts.
Men
Ugly
May
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