1984 Important Quotes:

He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable.

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.128, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Past, Nineteen, 1984 Important, Unimaginable, Ignorance In 1984

We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now.

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison “The Complete Works of George Orwell: Nineteen eighty-four”

topic: 1984 Important, Neurologists, Abolish

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

- George Orwell

source: Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 1 (1949)

topic: Freedom, War, Ignorance, Dystopia, Dystopian

For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

- George Orwell

topic: Running, Ignorance, Thinking, Privileged, 1984 Important

Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

- George Orwell

topic: Truth, Freedom, Knowledge, 1984 Important, Ignorance In 1984

Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.

- George Orwell

topic: Truth, Reality, Mind, 1984 Important, Human Mind

For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.178, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Science, Past, Two, 1984 Important

Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.

- George Orwell

topic: Doe, 1984 Important

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

- George Orwell

topic: Time, Freedom, Imagination, Looking To The Future, Big Government

It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children

- George Orwell

topic: Children, People, Normal, Thought Police, 1984 Important

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

- George Orwell

source: Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 3 (1949) See Orwell 19

topic: Dream, Time, Peace, Dystopia, Power And Control

Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

- George Orwell

topic: Mean, Thinking, Orthodoxy, 1984 Important, Ignorance In 1984

Records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth.

- George Orwell

topic: War, Lying, Drug, 1984 Important, Ignorance In 1984

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

- George Orwell

topic: Mean, Two, Mind, Media Propaganda, 1984 Important

If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened - that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.

- Winston Smith

topic: Party, Past, Hands, 1984 Important

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.

- George Orwell

topic: Power, Intention, Relinquishing, 1984 Important, Police Power

The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering-a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons-a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting-three hundred million people all with the same face.

- George Orwell

topic: Party, Fighting, Warrior, Marching Forward, 1984 Important

If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable - what then?

- George Orwell

topic: Past, Mind, World, 1984 Important, Unchangeable

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

- George Orwell

topic: Lying, Party, Past, 1984 Important, Ignorance In 1984

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

source: Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 5 (1949)

topic: Political, Nineteen, Impossible, 1984 Important

We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull.

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.569, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Reality, Skulls, Mind, 1984 Important

But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell (2003). “1984”, Plume Books

topic: Party, Blow, Hatred, 1984 Important

A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.

- George Orwell

topic: Flames, People, Desire, 1984 Important, Electric Current

He who controls the past controls the future.

- Laozi

topic: Future, Past, Political Language, Power And Control, Looking To The Future

We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.

- George Orwell

topic: Darkness, 1984 Important, 1984 Movie, Semblance

Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.

- George Orwell

topic: Love, Marriage, Truth, 1984 Important

The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existance, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it.

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.305, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Memories, Party, Past, Mutability, 1984 Important

The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon.

- George Orwell

topic: Memories, Past, Records, 1984 Important, Agree Upon