The Best George Orwell Quotes

George Orwell was an English novelist, essayist and journalist. He is probably best known for the novels ‘Animal Farm‘ and ‘1984’.

George Orwell was a man of strong opinions who addressed some of the major political movements of his times, including imperialism, fascism and communism.

In his popular novel ‘1984’ which was written in 1948, George Orwell gave it’s readers a dark glimpse into what would happen if a government controlled every detail of a person’s life even down to their own private thoughts.

In his other popular novel ‘Animal Farm‘, the book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy.

Ultimately, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad if not worse than it was before.

I first read ‘Animal Farm‘ while in school, and I was enthralled by the story and its characters.

I hope that you will enjoy this collection of thought provoking George Orwell quotes.

1984 Quotes

1. “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” – George Orwell

2. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – George Orwell

3. “What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself; who gives your arguments a fair hearing and simply persists in his lunacy?” – George Orwell

4. “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.” – George Orwell

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

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

7. “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” – George Orwell

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

9. “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.” – George Orwell

Best 1984 Quotes

10. “If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love.” – George Orwell

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

12. “Big Brother is Watching You.” – George Orwell

13. “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” – George Orwell

14. “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

15. “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

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

17. “Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.” – George Orwell

18. “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

19. “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.” – George Orwell

20. “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

21. “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” – George Orwell

Animal Farm Quotes

1. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” – George Orwell

2. “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.” – George Orwell

3. “Four legs good, two legs bad.” – George Orwell

4. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” – George Orwell

5. “Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers.” – George Orwell

6.

The Seven Commandments:
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal. – George Orwell

7. “And remember also that in fighting against man we must not come to resemble him. Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices.” – George Orwell

8. “Let’s face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.” – George Orwell

9. “Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever.” – George Orwell

Best Animal Farm Quotes

10. “This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.” – George Orwell

11. “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” – George Orwell

I hope that you enjoyed reading this collection of George Orwell Quotes from his books ‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm’.

The advice from George Orwell is timeless: Always question things, value your freedom and try to understand what is really happening in the world around you.

Let us all try to remember the important lessons from the above George Orwell Quotes and stay committed to keeping our human dignity and freedom safe.