ಸುಮ್ ಸುಮ್ನೆ > ಸುಮ್'s Quotes

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“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. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”
― George Orwell, 1984

“We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Sanity is not statistical.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“You are a slow learner, Winston."
"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“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.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“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?”
― George Orwell, 1984

“The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree.”
― George Orwell, 1984