War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
The modern writer who has influenced me most is W. Somerset Maugham .
So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.
The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?
Patriotism has nothing to do with Conservatism. It is actually the opposite of Conservatism, since it is a devotion to something that is always changing and yet is felt to be mystically the same.
By using stale metaphors, similes and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself.
That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
Despotic governments can stand ‘moral force’ till the cows come home; what they fear is physical force.
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?
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level.
I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.
The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.
Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.
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 Party, which is collective and immortal.