Why Orwell Matters Quotes

“But what [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that 'views' do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think; and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“Very often, people embarking on such guesswork make the vulgar assumption that the lower the motives, the more likely they are to be authentic.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“In the late 1940s, a dystopian novel based on the notorious horrors of ‘National Socialism’ would probably have been very well-received. But it would have done nothing to shake the complacency of Western intellectuals concerning the system of state terror for which, at the time, so many of them had either a blind spot or a soft spot.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“racialism is something totally different. It is the invention not of conquered nations but of conquering nations. It is a way of pushing exploitation beyond the point that is normally possible, by pretending that the exploited are not human beings.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“He would appear never to have diluted his opinions in the hope of seeing his byline disseminated to the paying customers; this alone is a clue to why he still matters.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“Real rustics are not conscious of being picturesque, they do not construct bird sanctuaries, they are uninterested in any bird or animal that does not affect them directly ... The fact is that those who really have to deal with nature have no cause to be in love with it.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“*For a fuller account of the revelations of the Moscow archives, and their detailed vindication of Orwell, see my Introduction to Orwell in Spain (Penguin, 2001).”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“Orwell’s ‘views’ have been largely vindicated by Time, so he need not seek any pardon on that score. But what he illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that ‘views’ do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think; and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“The will to command and to dominate is one thing, but the will to obey and be prostrate is a deadly foe as well.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“the idea that two and two make five, for instance, was suggested by multiple sources. Stalin’s propagandists were fond of saying that they completed the first Five Year Plan in four years; this was sometimes rendered for the simple-minded as 2+2=5.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“Coincidence, said Louis Pasteur, has a tendency to occur only to the mind that is prepared to notice it.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“When intellectuals and artists withdraw from the fray, politicians feel safer.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path. It is curious, but till that moment I had never realised what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“With the United Kingdom devolving (or deliquescing, according to taste and interpretation) the assertion of Scottish and Welsh and Irish nationhood was met in the southern nation with an efflorescence of the flag of St George. Sometimes an emblem on pubs or taxis, or on the brawny limbs of soccer fans, its reappearance was often a symptom of insecurity, both about the internal state of the kingdom and the external challenge represented by the idea of ‘Europe’.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“They both measure out their lives in cigarettes, nervously calculating whether the next one was really reserved for the following day, or sometimes the following week.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters

“It has had its full share of contradictions and negations — its original proclamation by slave holders who insisted that ‘all men are created equal’ is one of the first affirmations on record that some are more equal than others.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters