Ignorance In 1984 Quotes:

In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane.

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell (1961). “1984”

topic: Intelligent, Understanding, Delusion, Ignorance In 1984

From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is.

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.454, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Dying, Rebel, Generations, Ignorance In 1984

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

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

- George Orwell

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

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

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

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

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

- George Orwell

topic: Inspirational, Inspiring, Wisdom, Knowing The Truth, Mind Opening

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

The more intelligent, the less sane

- George Orwell

topic: Intelligent, Sane, Ignorance In 1984

What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked upon as a matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual liberty becasue they have no intellect.

- George Orwell

topic: Intellectual, Liberty, Matter, Ignorance In 1984

If human equality is to be forever averted -- if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently -- then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.

- George Orwell

topic: Forever, Insanity, Prevailing, Ignorance In 1984, Human Equality

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

The secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own infallibility with a power to learn from past mistakes.

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.164, Arcturus Publishing

topic: Mistake, Past, Secret, Rulership, Learn From The Past

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

- George Orwell

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

The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental , nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink

- George Orwell

topic: Lying, War, Exercise, 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

...the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.

- George Orwell

topic: War, Position, Ignorance In 1984

The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim-for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives -is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.

- George Orwell

topic: Men, Too Much, Abiding, Ignorance In 1984

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 process [of mass-media deception] has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies all this is indispensably necessary.

- George Orwell

topic: Truth, Lying, Believe, Mass Media, Media Control

The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life ... A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors... Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.

- George Orwell

topic: Father, Son, Persistence, Ignorance In 1984

He who controls the past controls the future.

- Laozi

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

And in the general hardening of outlook that set in ... practices which had been long abandoned ... -- imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations -- not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.

- George Orwell

topic: War, Practice, Long, Deportation, Ignorance In 1984

But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than this. There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern.

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell (2001). “The Complete Novels of George Orwell: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Nineteen Eighty-Four”, p.1306, Penguin UK

topic: Strong, Fall, Self Confidence, Perpetuating, Ignorance In 1984

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

From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

- George Orwell

topic: War, Party, Ignorance, Ignorance In 1984

In the past the need for a hierarchal form of society has been the doctrine specifically of the High. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and the priests, lawyers and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally been softened by promises of an imaginary world beyond the grave.

- George Orwell

topic: Kings, Past, Promise, Futuristic, Utopian

No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.

- George Orwell

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

topic: Equality, Reform, Literature, Equality Of People, Ignorance In 1984