Quotes from George Orwell

Nothing holds it together except an idea which is indestructible.

Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me--

Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me: There lie they, and here lie we Under the spreading chestnut tree.

The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.

The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.

A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.

Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing.

Myths which are believed in tend to become true.

We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

Truth becomes untruth if uttered by your enemy

For a creative writer possession of the 'truth' is less important than emotional sincerity.

The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.

The enemies of intellectual liberty always try to present their case as a plea for discipline versus individualism. The issue truth-versus-untruth is as far as possible kept in the background.

The truth, it is felt, becomes untruth when your enemy utters it.

The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

Is not anyone with any degree of mental honesty conscious of telling lies all day long, both in talking and writing, simply because lies will fall into artistic shape when truth will not?

I did try very hard to tell the whole truth without violating my literary instincts.

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

Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.