George Orwell Quotes

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

The real democratic American idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but that every man shall have liberty to be what God made him, without hindrance.

Nobody told me how to talk or think.

In the age of the individual's liquidation, the question of individuality must be raised anew.

For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels, and not the words of one who kneels.

You know, our sense of individuality is just the number one target of civilization.

The real democratic idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other, but that every one shall have liberty, without hindrance, to be what God made him.

All greatness of character is dependent on individuality.

Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist.

Society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences.

Real people are complex, contradictory, and have their own motivations - they can't just be mouthpieces for the writers' point of view.

Mankind is at its best when it is most free.

People don't want other people to be people.

Self-expression is the dominant necessity of human nature.

Forbid a man to think for himself or to act for himself and you may add the joy of piracy and the zest of smuggling to his life.

Freedom within any kind of social structure - the whole issue of exactly what the human animal is - is an ongoing preoccupation of mine. And I certainly don't think I've come to the end of that exploration, and with any luck, I never will. But I'm very curious about exactly what kind of beast we are. We're so complicated.

My message to women: Do what makes you feel good, because there'll always be someone who thinks you should do it differently. Whether your choices are hits or misses, at least they're your own.

If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.

Human beings seem to be far more autonomous and self-governed than modern psychological theory allows for.

The mind is not a machine, it is an idea. And the Idea resists all attempts to control it.

Freedom and constraint are two aspects of the same necessity, the necessity of being the man you are and not another. You are free to be that man, but not another.

Never follow anybody else's idea - that is very dangerous because you will become imitative. Always follow your own nature, self-nature; only then will you attain to freedom. It is better to die following one's nature than to live following somebody's else's nature, because that will be a pseudo life. To die following one's nature is beautiful, because that death too will be authentic.

The strongest lesson I can teach my son is the same lesson I teach my daughter: how to be who he wishes to be for himself.

I won't work with people who won't give me the freedom to be me.

Freedom is essentially a condition of inequality, not equality. It recognizes as a fact of nature the structural differences inherent in man - in temperament, character, and capacity - and it respects those differences. We are not alike and no law can make us so.