The Complete Works of George Orwell Quotes

“Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also—since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself—unshakeably certain of being in the right.”
― George Orwell, The Complete Works: Novels, Memoirs, Poetry, Essays, Book Reviews & Articles: 1984, Animal Farm, Down and Out in Paris and London, Prophecies of Fascism…

“No rich man ever succeeds in disguising himself as a poor man; for money, like murder, will out.”
― George Orwell, The Complete Works of George Orwell: Novels, Poetry, Essays:

“In the deadly glare of the Neon lights the pavements were densely crowded. Gordon threaded his way, a small shabby figure, with pale face and unkempt hair. The crowd slid past him; he avoided and was avoided. There is something horrible about London at night; the coldness, the anonymity, the aloofness. Seven million people, sliding to and fro, avoiding contact, barely aware of one another's existence, like fish in an aquarium tank.”
― George Orwell, The Complete Works: Novels, Memoirs, Poetry, Essays, Book Reviews & Articles: 1984, Animal Farm, Down and Out in Paris and London, Prophecies of Fascism…

“It is so with all types of manual work; it keeps us alive, and we are oblivious of its existence. More than anyone else, perhaps, the miner can stand as the type of the manual worker, not only because his work is so exaggeratedly awful, but also because it is so vitally necessary and yet so remote from our experience, so invisible, as it were, that we are capable of forgetting it as we forget the blood in our veins.”
― George Orwell, George Orwell Complete Collection

“When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him.”
― George Orwell, The Complete Works of George Orwell: Novels, Poetry, Essays:

“There is a theory which has not yet been accurately formulated or given a name, but which is very widely accepted and is brought forward whenever it is necessary to justify some action which conflicts with the sense of decency of the average human being. It might be called, until some better name is found, the Theory of Catastrophic Gradualism. According to this theory, nothing is ever achieved without bloodshed, lies, tyranny and injustice, but on the other hand no considerable change for the better is to be expected as the result of even the greatest upheaval. History necessarily proceeds by calamities, but each succeeding age will be as bad, or nearly as bad, as the last. One must not protest against purges, deportations, secret police forces and so forth, because these are the price that has to be paid for progress: but on the other hand “human nature” will always see to it that progress is slow or even imperceptible. If you object to dictatorship you are a reactionary, but if you expect dictatorship to produce good results you are a sentimentalist.”
― George Orwell, The Complete Works: Novels, Memoirs, Poetry, Essays, Book Reviews & Articles: 1984, Animal Farm, Down and Out in Paris and London, Prophecies of Fascism…