Orwell's Ghosts Quotes

“Orwell is justly admired for his grasp of the essential truth that tyranny is incompatible with liberty. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictatorship, he taught us, whether it be a dictatorship of the left or of the right, or the white man's burden of imperial dictatorship.”
― Laura Beers, Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-first Century, Library Edition

“If readers and writers are conscious of language, they will cease to be susceptible to corrupt political argument. Totalitarianism will lose its strength in the face of crisp, clear prose. It is a heavy burden to place on the shoulders of the English language. That Orwell was willing to assign language such power underscored his belief in the centrality of speech to politics, and the importance not only of securing free speech, but of ensuring that words that are spoken freely are also spoken honestly.”
― Laura Beers, Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-first Century, Library Edition

“Orwell believed in liberty above all else, but liberty in his view was predicated on an assumption of personal and social responsibility.”
― Laura Beers, Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-first Century, Library Edition

“Orwell's willingness to take part in a similar exercise in Britain reflects the same conviction and reveals his privilege of truth over freedom of speech when the two came into direct conflict. While Orwell abhorred censorship, he was willing to do his part to ensure that authors whom he perceived to be knowingly mendacious were not offered a platform to voice their untruths, because truthfulness was, in Orwell's estimation, the highest virtue. His journalistic writing is peppered with phrases such as "This was true enough," "The truth was that," "It would be true to say," and "I believe this was true.”
― Laura Beers, Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-first Century, Library Edition

“The Eric Blair who finished Eton in 1921 was a naive young snob, with little knowledge of the world beyond the confines of the British middle class. His experiences in Burma, in Paris’s Latin Quarter, among England’s destitute in London and Wigan, and particularly in Catalonia developed his social conscience and honed his commitment to the twin ideals of liberty and social justice with which he remains indelibly associated.”
― Laura Beers, Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-first Century, Library Edition

“He opposed the capitalist imperial order, but he remained at heart a traditionalist, imbued with the patriotic values of his childhood and implacably wedded to a patriarchal view of society.”
― Laura Beers, Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-first Century, Library Edition