George Orwell Quotes

Indifference to Reality. All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.

Another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one's own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard - every action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals, which they serve.

I know it is very hard to rise above the influences of party prejudice. Often, it almost drowns the sentiment of patriotism. Party rancor and party hatred are the last serpents which the genius of patriotism can crush.

All nations are more tolerant of their own mistakes and weaknesses than of the mistakes and weaknesses of others.

Our fear of hypocrisy is forcing us to live in a world where gluttons are fine, so long as they champion gluttony.

The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.

The aspects of patriotism that hush dissent, encourage going along, and sanction comfortable distancing and compliance with what is indecent and unacceptable... those aspects are too fundamental to ignore or gloss over.

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

Historical hypocrites have themselves carried out the very human rights abuses that they suddenly decide warrant intervention elsewhere.

Above all, be suspicious of your fatherland. Nobody is more inclined to become a murderer than a fatherland.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

Saying my President “right or wrong” is like saying my driver “drunk or sober.”

That kind of patriotism which consists in hating all other nations.

My love of country admits of no limitations, makes no concessions…It is …blind, prejudiced and passionate.

These antipatriotic prejudices are the abortions of folly impregnated by faction.

Politics has become a little like football. We cheer for our favorite team no matter how well they are playing.

As soon as fear, hatred, jealousy and power worship are involved, the sense of reality becomes unhinged. And ... the sense of right and wrong becomes unhinged also. There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when ‘our’ side commits it. Even if one does not deny that the crime has happened, even if one knows that it is exactly the same crime as one has condemned in some other case, even if one admits in an intellectual sense that it is unjustified — still one cannot feel that it is wrong. Loyalty is involved, and so pity ceases to function.

Patriotism is the belief that not all human lives are worth the same.

There are too many people who imagine that there is something sophisticated about always believing the best of those who hate your country, and the worst of those who defend it.

The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.

PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.

Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards; those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and those bastards always talk about the purity of race.

I remember learning about the Holocaust when I was in kindergarten and being terrified. I think we even watched a graphic video about it in Jewish day school. Although I was quite young, I remember making these vows to myself such as, I'm never going to love my country so much that I can't leave in a moment's notice.

To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference was made without, a comparison; but it has never been my fortune to find, either in ancient or modern writers, any honourable mention of those, who have, with equal blindness, hated their country.

Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.