George Orwell Quotes

No truly sophisticated proponent of repression would be stupid enough to shatter the facade of democratic institutions.

Mobutu does not think he is God.

Audacity is the currency for authoritarians.

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

All men would be tyrants if they could.

The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

The world is full of little dictators trying to run your life.

Well, when you look at a lot of science fiction novels they're asking questions about power. There are questions about what it means to have power and what are the long-term consequences of power.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Anyone who seeks power wants absolute power.

The need to exert power, when thwarted in the open fields of life, is the more likely to assert itself in trifles.

Power is what men seek and any group that gets it will abuse it.

The thing about Republicans is that they don't care so much about respect, but they love fear, at least in others.

Power is an instrument of fatal consequence. It is confined no more readily than quicksilver, and escapes good intentions as easily as air flows through mesh.

The ruling idea of the politician - stated rather bluntly - is that those who are opposed to him exist for the purpose of being made to serve his ends, if he can get power enough in his hands to force these ends upon them.

The tyrant is only the slave turned inside out.

Politics is the art of dominating men.

Truth is always the enemy of power. And power the enemy of truth.

Watch out for the man who talks of putting things in order. Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.

The Arrogance of Power

Power corrupts; but absolute power is really neat.

Each new power won by man is a power over man as well.