George Orwell Quotes

Every generation, no matter how paltry its character, thinks itself much wiser than the one immediately preceding it, let alone those that are more remote.

It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous.

The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

I've often thought that one of us is what we imagine, that each of us normalizes the terrible strangeness of inner life with a variety of convenient fictions.

She liked to imagine that when she passed the world looked after her, but she also knew how anonymous she was.

Of late I appear To have reached that stage When people who look old Who are only my age.

There are things that a woman sings, and only a woman knows the full meaning. You may sing for men as well as for women, but only a woman knows your full meaning. I am not a feminista. I only think a woman should be true to who she believes herself to be. Or who she wants herself to be. Or who she imagines herself to be. I don't know what I mean, or whether I'm true myself to any of that. I don't think there are many of us who are true to our possibilities.

I think human intelligence is the only one that will actually tell you intent.

I find no intellect comparable to my own

Everyone in your life is a figment of your imagination--ev en you.

The shock, for an intelligent writer, of discovering for the first time that there are people younger than himself who think him stupid is severe.

Could you fall in love with her if she wasn't smarter than you? I mean, she may not be smarter than you. But isn't it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? Think now.

It was the hubris of each generation to think this anew, to think that their time was special, that all things would come to an end with them.

We forget that the world is what we imagine it to be. We stop being the sun and become, instead, the pool of water reflecting it.

when I was a boy I used to dream of becoming the village idiot. I used to lie in bed and imagine myself the happy idiot able to get food easily ...and easy sympathy, a planned confusion of not too much love or effort. some would claim that I have succeeded.

Chimpanzees are an evolutionary hair's-width from us.... Now imagine a species on Earth, or anywhere else, as smart compared with humans as humans are compared with chimpanzees. How much of the universe might they figure out?

I am a very mediocre intellect, at best, and I am smarter than most people I know - and that terrifies me.

I have made my world and it is a much better world than I ever saw outside.

I'm really the addition of other peoples' imagination, quite honestly. It's what they see me as, and I'm very happy to comply. I find things are more varied that way.

The largest and most powerful computers are still no match for the smallest and weakest humans.

...an actor is exactly as big as his imagination.

every generation has a conceit of itself which elevates it, in its own opinion, above that which comes after it.

Your imagination, my dear fellow, is worth more than you imagine.

Duke is in extremely competitive environment. In my high school, I think I got one B my whole four years. I was used to being the smartest kid in every class I was in, and then I went to Duke and suddenly I was the dumbest kid in every class. Everybody there is up to something.