George Orwell Quotes

Show me what society that ever existed that did not use the tools that they had available. Ask any person from East Germany... you will never hear somebody say, 'The Stasi never bothered me because I didn't have anything to hide.' That's not a thing that people say.

they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.

We're being subject to incredible amounts of surveillance, the police are taking on draconian powers and violating our rights. I think this attempt to protect ourselves is ultimately going to founder because people don't like living inside prisons.

Communism of every type and stripe brings with it an ideological straight jacket. Thought control, brain-washing, censorship, imprisonment, exile, mental and physical torture are the indispensable weapons of Communist rule.

A totalitarian society makes enormous demands on the courage of men, and a partially totalitarian society makes even greater demands because the general anxiety is greater.

I believe there's something out there watching over us. Unfortunately, it's the government

We have a free society, and the totalitarian states are dungeons. We have totally different methods of population control…. We can’t control people so we have to control what they think.

Bureaucracy is ever desirous of spreading its influence and its power. You cannot extend the mastery of the government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of the people's souls and thoughts.

I wouldn't want to have the thought police going to people's homes, dictating what they teach their children. I don't want to be Big Brotherish. I would hate that.

In this the age of concern over privacy invasion and surveillance and manipulation, people will start to realize that there is no way to avoid being manipulated by other people, governments, marketers, and the like.

Any society that starts forbidding certain words or expressions is a society you should be wary about, whether it's the KGB or social consensus that enforces it.

In the Soviet Union, you always have the feeling someone is watching you.

I don't want to be followed by paparazzi; that terrifies me.

For the longest time, I was just real nervous about privacy and people prying into my personal business.

The whole Big Brother vision of the world is looming large.

People everywhere face the threat of control by government and technology.

It seems to me that we are living in an increasingly unfree society.

Inside North Korea, we have many informants and spies watching everyone; they're paid by the government. Even a husband and wife can't trust each other.

When I was a kid, there were really only two possible futures in the foreground, which were Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'Brave New World'.

[…] the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.”

I think people, unfortunately, do live in constant fear. I think the government - and people in general - create scenarios people fear, because ultimately through fear you can control people. I wish we could live in a world where there would be no fear, but it's a driving force in many decisions people make these days, whether it's personal, economic, or even job-related. A lot of people stay out of fear in a job they hate.

Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity. Do not misunderstand me danger is very real but fear is a choice.

It is not difficult to deprive the great majority of independent thought. But the minority who will retain an inclination to criticize must also be silenced....Public criticism or even expressions of doubt must be suppressed because they tend to weaken pubic support....When the doubt or fear expressed concerns not the success of a particular enterprise but of the whole social plan, it must be treated even more as sabotage.

So efficient are the available instruments of slavery; fingerprints, lie detectors, brain washings, gas chambers; that we shiver at the thought of political change which might put these instruments in the hands of men of hate.

Face your worry and see it as an illusion. It cannot exist unless you give it power and give it life.