George Orwell Quotes

It wasn't until my teenage years that a book really left a mark, and that was George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four.' It was on the syllabus at school when I was about 16, and I went on to read more of his books. It was the height of the Cold War, so a lot of the messages really resonated at the time.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

All that is needed to set us definitely on the road to a Fascist society is war. It will of course be a modified form of Fascism at first.

It is well known that in the Communist countries, and especially in my own, Albania, readers were often called upon to demonstrate their vigilance by detecting and denouncing the 'errors' of authors.

As a reader, I've always been interested in dystopian novels like 'Nineteen Eighty-four'.

The Thought Police: To censor and protect.

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

I've always been interested in those Orwellian dystopian novels, like 'Fahrenheit 451,' 'Brave New World,' and obviously Orwell's '1984.'

1984 is such an iconic, loaded year in so many ways.

The North Korean regime really can control people. I think they are the best dictator in the whole planet.

Surveillance breeds conformity.

I'd known that the visit would be highly scripted and that genuine interactions with citizens wouldn't be possible, since it's illegal for them to speak with foreigners. Still, I'd thought I'd had a unique look at North Korea, only to discover I was wrong.

Communism in Cuba will collapse sooner or later because you can't control the free flow of information. Communism prevents organizations from developing by stopping the flow of information. The system is based on police and listening devices and triggers the worst characteristics in humans.

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

George Orwell's '1984' frequently tops surveys of our greatest books: it's not a celebration of poetic language. It's decidedly anti-literary, a masterpiece of personal and political narrative sequence. And its subject matter is crucial, because what '1984' shows is that language can be a dirty trick.

It was Orwellian. I completely disappeared, and disappeared the same day. It was by early that evening when the Times story ran. That was an overreaction. All human beings under pressure behave poorly.

The first casualty when war comes is truth.

The Soviet Union was a one-party state. In such states, enemies of the party become enemies of the state, and the state can punish with full weight of prosecution.

The real evil of the Russian communist state is not communism. It is the secret police and the concentration camp.

I was not extremely patriotic about Mother Russia. I played their game, pretending. You have to deal with, you know, party people, KGB. Horrifying.

We've come into the world of '1984,' but it turns out to be '1984'-Lite.

In the Soviet Union it was illegal to take a photograph of a train station. Look what happened to them. They tried to classify everything.

I lived under the Nazis and under the Communists.

I think Dianne Feinstein may be the most Orwellian political official in Washington. It is hard to imagine having a government more secretive than the United States.

I grew up in a society where everything you did was eavesdropped on, recorded, snitched on. I had friends when we were kids getting into trouble for telling anecdotes about Communist leaders.