George Orwell Quotes

On why the story you tell about your own past matters:

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

On staying in a relationship built on control:

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.

On refusing to doubt what you plainly saw:

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted all else follows.

On catching yourself repeating a contradiction because it is comforting:

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

On finding peace with a situation you cannot change:

Happiness can only exist in acceptance.

Deciding whether you are seeking admiration from a partner or actual understanding:

Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.

Deciding whether to stop rationalizing a choice you already know is wrong:

If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.

On noticing when a fair system quietly stops being fair:

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

On seeing through the polished language of a bad decision:

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.

On admitting what you have known for a while but avoided saying:

To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.

On writing plainly instead of impressively at work:

Good prose is like a window pane.

Being honest with yourself about the mixed motives behind your ambition:

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.

On what makes a personal account believable:

Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful.

Making peace with a hard chapter you would not actually undo:

This war, in which I played so ineffective a part, has left me with memories that are mostly evil, and yet I do not wish that I had missed it.

Facing a financial rock bottom you always feared and finding you can survive it:

You have talked so often of going to the dogs, and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it.

Deciding whether to hide financial desperation while job hunting or admit it:

It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.

Noticing that a role you took on for others has started to become who you actually are:

He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.