George Orwell Quotes

People tend not to want to question dogma. But I'm afraid of dogma.

Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

Religions have always stressed that compassion is not only central to religious life, it is the key to enlightenment and it the true test of spirituality. But there have always have been those who'd rather put easier goals, like doctrine conformity, in place.

I'm very wary of large groups of people getting together and trying to believe the same thing. It never seems to end well, whether it's political or religious or whatever.

Any stigma will do to beat a dogma.

Habit with him was all the test of truth; It must be right: I've done it from my youth.

In religion and politics, people's belief's and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination

A religious belief is not a statement about Reality, but a hint, a clue about something that is a mystery, beyond the grasp of human thought. In short, a religious belief is only a finger pointing to the moon. Some religious people never get beyond the study of the finger. Others are engaged in sucking it. Others yet use the finger to gouge their eyes out. These are the bigots whom religion has made blind. Rare indeed is the religionist who is sufficiently detached from the finger to see what it is indicating - these are those who, having gone beyond belief, are taken for blasphemers.

The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

The sheep-people don't think for themselves anymore. You can say anything and it's the gospel truth and they don't have to go research it or anything, and they believe everything the news tells them. People don't go and do their own investigations if it's relationships or politics or anything.

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.

Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, 'Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.' That's not valid for people who want to think and reflect.

To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.

Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business.

We too often bind ourselves by authorities rather than by the truth.

Notwithstanding this high Ecclesiastical authority, he who dared accept truth only because it could be proved, or proved to be good, and disregard authority, was commonly stigmatized as an infidel.

Most of the research which is done is determined by the requirement that it shall, in a fairly obvious and predictable way, reinforce the approved or fashionable theories.

Where I come from you're not raised to think on your own. It's not that you're pushed to read the Bible. The Bible is read to you.

For me, God is in my life. I don't hide from that... I think the search has been on since the '60s.

Within orthodoxy, there is always a danger of faith collapsing into fear.

Where there is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common

I feel uneasy at the very idea of a Movement. I see every insight degenerating into a dogma, and fresh thoughts freezing into lifeless party line.

There’s too much orthodoxy in the political process today.

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.