George Orwell quotes for UPSC

Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip.

There are occasions when it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all.

One's got to change the system, or one changes nothing.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

It is quite possible that we are descending into an age in which two plus two will make five when the Leader says so.

Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.

Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.

Anyone who knows of a provable instance of colour discrimination ought always to expose it.

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.

Perhaps a man really dies when his brain stops, when he loses the power to take in a new idea.

Adults are only less superstitious than children in proportion as they have more power over their environment. In predicaments where everyone is powerless (eg war, gambling) everyone is superstitious

When you have no money your life is one long series of snubs.

Actually, the problem for the world as a whole is not how to distribute such wealth that exists but how to increase production, without which economic equality merely means common misery.

Having defeated your enemy you have to choose (unless you want another war within a generation) between exterminating him and treating him generously.

One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

War damages, the fabric of civilisation not by the destruction it causes (the net effect of a war may even be to increase the productive capacity of the world as a whole) nor even by the slaughter of human beings, but by the stimulated hatred and dishonesty.

I always disagree, however, when people end up saying that we can only combat Communism, Fascism or what not if we develop an equal fanaticism. It appears to me that one defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.

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

If there are certain pages of Mr Bertrand Russell's book, Power, which seem rather empty, that is merely to say that we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

One is almost driven to the cynical conclusion that men are only decent when they are powerless.

Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while 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.

What is needed is the right to print what one believes to be true, without having to fear bullying or blackmail from any side.

Every war, when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defence against a homicidal maniac.

The essential job is to get people to recognise war propaganda when they see it, especially when it is disguised as peace propaganda.

Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface.

Living a lie the whole time — the lie that we're here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of to rob them ... it corrupts us, it corrupts us in ways you can't imagine.

The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

The thing that politicians are seemingly unable to understand is that you cannot produce a vigorous literature by terrorising everyone into conformity.

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.

So far as I can see, 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.

Envy is a horrible thing. It is unlike all other kinds of suffering in that there is no disguising it, no elevating it into tragedy. It is more than merely painful, it is disgusting.

The whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish day-dream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.