George Orwell Quotes

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

The control of the past depends above all on the training of memory

Who controls the present controls the past. There's a power structure, if you like, between the present and the past and the future, and that's what I'm interested in.

In Russia, history is often written in pencil so it can be more easily erased.

History is past politics, and politics present history.

In the struggle for power, propaganda is an instrument to be used by those who want to secure or retain power just as much as it is by those wanting to displace them.

It will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

Creators of history always play with our impotence and our ignorance.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.

I am not invested with dictatorial powers. If I were, I should be quite ready to dictate.

Many try to force the past to change.

History is easy to change.

Events are as much the parents of the future as they were the children of the past.

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.

Party historians go to the past for party purposes; they seek to read into the past the controversies of the present.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day be day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right.

In early times, it was easier to control a million people than to kill a million. Today, it is infinitely easier to to kill a million people than to control a million.

… new authoritarians are conducting an epoch-making historical experiment as to whether regimes that allow private freedoms can endure when they deny their citizens public freedom.

Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people.

Commemorating the present and looking forward to a more promising future has always depended on learning from the past..

Anti-Western resentment and Russian patriotism appear particularly pronounced in Putin’s personality and life experiences, but a different Russian government not run by former KGB types would still be confronted with the challenge of weakness vis-à-vis the West and the desire for a special role in the world. Russia’s foreign policy orientation, in other words, is as much a condition as a choice. But if Russian elites could somehow redefine their sense of exceptionalism and put aside their unwinnable competition with the West, they could set their country on a less costly, more promising course.

Presidents look back seeking both inspiration for the future and sanction for the moment

Moved by the need for control, for an unchallenged top tier, the power elite in American history has thrived by placating the vulnerable and creating for them a false sense of identification—denying real class differences wherever possible.