Share this page: It is brought home to you... that because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons remain superior. -- The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt. -- The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) The typical Socialist is... a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting. -- The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) To the ordinary working man, the sort you would meet in any pub on Saturday night, Socialism does not mean much more than better wages and shorter hours and nobody bossing you about. -- The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) Down here it was still the England I had known in my childhood: the railway cuttings smothered in wildflowers... the red buses, the blue policemen -- all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs. -- Hommage to Catalonia (1938) England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted passage, nor is it the Inferno depicted by Dr. Goebbels. More than either it ressembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons... A family with the wrong members in control. -- "England Your England" in The Lion and the Unicorn (1941) All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. -- Animal Farm (1945) The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield. -- "In Front of Your Nose", Tribune (22 March 1946) "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU." -- Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. -- Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) Syme was not only dead, he was abolished, an un-person. -- Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. -- Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever. -- Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, and disregard of all the rules. -- "I Write as I Please" in Shooting an Elephant (1950) Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. -- "Politics and the English Language" in Shooting an Elephant (1950) Share this page:

The selection of the above quotes and the writing of the accompanying notes was performed by the author David Paul Wagner. About Us • Contact Us • Privacy • Terms of Use © 2005-23 Wide World of Quotes. All Rights Reserved.