George Orwell Quotes

Those who abjure violence can only do so by others committing violence on their behalf.

No one I met at this time — doctors, nurses, practicantes, or fellow-patients — failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives it is the luckiest creature alive. I could not help thinking that it would be even luckier not to be hit at all.

It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion, and such truisms as that a machine-gun is still a machine-gun even when a "good" man is squeezing the trigger — and that in effect is what Mr Russell is saying — have turned into heresies which it is actually becoming dangerous to utter.

I have been discussing Dickens simply in terms of his ‘message’, and almost ignoring his literary qualities. But every writer, especially every novelist, has a ‘message’, whether he admits it or not, and the minutest details of his work are influenced by it. All art is propaganda. Neither Dickens himself nor the majority of Victorian novelists would have thought of denying this. On the other hand, not all propaganda is art. As I said earlier, Dickens is one of those writers who are felt to be worth stealing. He has been stolen by Marxists, by Catholics and, above all, by Conservatives. The question is, What is there to steal? Why does anyone care about Dickens? Why do I care about Dickens?

Between them these two books sum up our present predicament. Capitalism leads to dole queues, the scramble for markets, and war. Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship, and war. There is no way out of this unless a planned economy can somehow be combined with the freedom of the intellect, which can only happen if the concept of right and wrong is restored to politics.

Four legs good, two legs bad.

إننا ندرك أنه ما من أحد يمسك بزمام السلطة وهو ينتوي التخلي عنها.
إن السلطة ليست وسيلة بل غاية، فالمرء لا يقيم حكما استبداديا لحماية الثورة، وإنما يشعل الثورة لإقامة حكم استبدادي.
إن الهدف من الاضطهاد هو الاضطهاد، والهدف من التعذيب هو التعذيب وغاية السلطة هي السلطة، هل بدأت تفهم ما أقول الآن ؟

Civilisation rests ultimately on coercion. What holds society together is not the policeman but the goodwill of common men, and yet that goodwill is powerless unless the policeman is there to back it up. Any government which refused to use violence in its own defence would cease almost immediately to exist, because it would be overthrown by any body of men, or even any individual, that was less scrupulous.

لن يكون قادرا على فهمها أو حتى الرد عليها، ومع ذلك فقد كان متيقنا أنه على صواب وأنهم على ضلال
وأن عليه الدفاع عن البسيط والواضح والحقيقي، عليك أن تتمسك بالبديهيات الواضحة!

If Dickens were alive to-day he would make a trip to Soviet Russia and come back with a book rather like Gide's Retour de L'URSS.

Good prose should be transparent, like a window pane.

إن المساواة بين البشر لم تعد غاية سامية تستحق النضال من أجلها, وإنما خطرا يجب تفاديه.

إن جوهر حكم القلة ليس وراثة الابن لأبيه , وإنما هو استمرارية رؤية للعالم وأسلوب حياة يفرضهما الموتى على الأحياء

ويتفق المجتمع في نهاية الأمر على الإيمان بأن الأخ القائد قادر على كل شيء وأن الحزب معصوم عن الخطأ, ولكن لمّا كان واقع الأمر يقول إن الأخ القائد ليس قادرا على كل شيء وأن الحزب ليس معصوما عن الخطأ , فإن ثمة حاجة إلى مرونة دائمة في معالجة الحقائق.

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work.

There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word — Man