George Orwell Quotes

Men reform a thing by removing the reality from it, and then do not know what to do with the unreality that is left.

I think I probably hoped for it a little bit, but I'm not an optimist. I'm a realist... or maybe even a pessimist.

The belief that the good in American society will finally win out... I don't believe any more.

Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.

Cynicism is the easiest of all reactions, right? But it's also so disappointing and self-defeating.

I accept reality and dare not question it.

We must break the cycle of cynicism that has hold of many of our youth.

In a world that's ugly and a lie, it's hard to even want to try.

Why, if it was an illusion, not praise the catastrophe, whatever it was, that destroyed illusion and put truth in it's place?

Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life.

Democracy, Republic: What do these words signify? What have they changed in the world? Have men become better, more loyal, kinder? Are the people happier? All goes on as before, as always. Illusions, illusions.

I know how difficult it can be when the image you've had of something doesn't match its reality; when the friend beside you turns into a monster.

Society soon grows used to any state of things which is imposed upon it without explanation.

Come on in girls, and leave all hope behind.

One day old Thrashbarg said that Almighty Bob had declared that he, Thrashbarg, was to have first pick of the sandwiches. The villagers asked him when this had happened, exactly, and Thrashbarg said it had happened yesterday, when they weren't looking. 'Have faith,' Old Thrashbarg said, 'or burn!' They let him have first pick of the sandwiches. It seemed easiest.

Why must you always try to be omnipotent, and shove things about? Tragic things happen sometimes that we just have to submit to.

To take the world as one finds it

Better to accept the wretched truth than struggle, twisting to make a wish a reality.

The more you act the further you get away from the truth.

The people generally get accustomed to the established order of things and begin to tremble at the very idea of a change. It is this lethargical spirit that needs be replaced by the revolutionary spirit.

Sooner or later, many idealists transform themselves into disheartened realists who mistakenly believe that giving up is the same thing as being realistic.

The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role impressed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.

By the time any view becomes a majority view, it is no longer the best view: somebody will already have advanced beyond the point which the majority have reached.

A false enchantment can all too easily last a lifetime.

If you aren't the woman I think you are, then this isn't the world I thought it was.