Quotes from 1984, by George Orwell- Apropos for now
From
http://www.bookrags.com/notes/1984/QUO.htm
Eric Arthur Blair used the pen name of GEORGE ORWELL.
He penned the classic, 1984, a dystopic tale of a future
society in which there was constant surveillance and micromanagement of the
lives of each man and woman.
Here are some assorted quotes from that great work.
" Quote 1: "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU" Part 1, Chapter
1, pg. 3
Quote 2: "WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH." Part 1, Chapter 1, pg. 6
Quote 3: "A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a
desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledgehammer, seemed to
flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one
even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic." Part 1, Chapter 1,
pg. 16
Quote 4: "one of those completely unquestioning, devoted
drudges on whom, more even than on the Thought Police, the stability of the
Party depended." Part 1, Chapter 2, pg. 23
Quote 5: "We shall meet in the place where there is no
darkness." Part 1, Chapter 2, pg. 27
Quote 6: "The past was dead, the future was unimaginable."
Part 1, Chapter 2, pg. 28
Quote 7: "With its grace and carelessness it seemed to
annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and
the Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single
splendid movement of the arm." Part 1, Chapter 3, pg. 33
Quote 8: "'Who controls the past', ran the Party slogan,
'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'" Part 1,
Chapter 3, pg. 37
Quote 9: "Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the
present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was
forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as
Charlemagne or Julius Caesar." Part 1, Chapter 4, pg. 50
Quote 10: "Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own
nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate
itself into some visible symptom." Part 1, Chapter 6, pg. 64
Quote 11: "She had not a thought in her head that was not
a slogan, and there was no imbecility, absolutely none, that she was not capable
of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her." Part 1, Chapter 6, pg. 67
Quote 12: "Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a
slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema." Part 1, Chapter 6,
pg. 69
Quote 13: "They were born, they grew up in the gutters,
they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming period of
beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at
thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of
home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and,
above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds." Part 1, Chapter 7,
pg. 71
Quote 14: "If there is hope, wrote Winston, it
lies in the proles." Part 1, Chapter 7, pg. 72
Quote 15: "Until they become conscious they will never
rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
Part 1, Chapter 7, pg. 74
Quote 16: "a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching
forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same
slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting - three hundred
million people all with the same face." Part 1, Chapter 7, pg. 77
Quote 17: "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus
two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." Part 1, Chapter 7, pg.
84
Quote 18: "It seemed to him that he knew exactly what it
felt like to sit in a room like this, in an armchair beside an open fire with
your feet in the fender and a kettle on the hob: utterly alone, utterly secure,
with nobody watching you, no voice pursuing you, no sound except the singing of
the kettle and the friendly ticking of the clock." Part 1, Chapter 8, pg. 100
Quote 19: "Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St
Clement's, You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's." Part 1,
Chapter 8, pg. 103
Quote 20: "At the sight of the words I love you the
desire to stay alive had welled up in him, and the taking of minor risks
suddenly seemed stupid." Part 2, Chapter 1, pg. 110-11
Quote 21: "by degrees the flood of music drove all
speculations out of his mind. It was as though it were a kind of liquid stuff
that poured all over him and got mixed up with the sunlight that filtered
through the leaves." Part 2, Chapter 2, pg. 125
Quote 22: "Not merely the love of one person, but the
animal instinct, the simple undifferentiated desire: that was the force that
would tear the Party to pieces." Part 2, Chapter 2, pg. 127
Quote 23: "to be bought furtively by proletarian youths
who were under the impression that they were buying something illegal." Part 2,
Chapter 3, pg. 132
Quote 24: "What was more important was that sexual
privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed
into war fever and leader worship." Part 2, Chapter 3, pg. 134
Quote 25: "She did not understand that there was no such
thing as happiness, that the only victory lay in the far future, long after you
were dead, that from the moment of declaring war on the Party it was better to
think of yourself as a corpse. 'We are the dead,' he said." Part 2, Chapter 3,
pg. 137
Quote 26: "The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth,
the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all
around him. She had become a physical necessity." Part 2, Chapter 4, pg. 140
Quote 27: "The proles, normally apathetic about the war,
were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism." Part 2,
Chapter 5, pg. 150
Quote 28: "So long as they were actually in this room,
they both felt, no harm could come to them." Part 2, Chapter 5, pg. 152
Quote 29: "Even the one plan that was practicable,
suicide, they had no intention of carrying out. To hang on from day to day and
from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed an
unconquerable instinct, just as one's lungs will always draw the next breath so
long as there is air available." Part 2, Chapter 5, pg. 153
Quote 30: "she only questioned the teachings of the Party
when they in some way touched upon her own life. Often she was ready to accept
the official mythology, simply because the difference between truth and
falsehood did not seem important to her." Part 2, Chapter 5, pg. 154
Quote 31: "He had the sensation of stepping into the
dampness of a grave, and it was not much better because he had always known that
the grave was there and waiting for him." Part 2, Chapter 6, pg. 160
Quote 32: "He knew that he was starving the other two, but
he could not help it; he even felt that he had a right to do it. The clamorous
hunger in his belly seemed to justify him." Part 2, Chapter 7, pg. 163
Quote 33: "The terrible thing that the Party had done was
to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at
the same time robbing you of all power over the material world." Part 2, Chapter
7, pg. 165
Quote 34: "It's the one thing they can't do. They can make
you say anything - anything - but they can't make you believe it. They
can't get inside you." Part 2, Chapter 7, pg. 167
Quote 35: "You will work for a while, you will be caught,
you will confess, and then you will die... There is no possibility that any
perceptible change will happen within our own lifetime. We are the dead." Part
2, Chapter 8, pg. 177
Quote 36: "The primary aim of modern warfare Part 1n
accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously
recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party is to
use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of
living." Part 2, Chapter 9, pg. 189
Quote 37: "If the machine were used deliberately for that
end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within
a few generations." Part 2, Chapter 9, pg. 190
Quote 38: "the consciousness of being at war, and
therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem
the natural, unavoidable condition of survival." Part 2, Chapter 9, pg. 192
Quote 39: "a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor,
studying with extraordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions,
gestures and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of drugs,
shock therapy, hypnosis, and physical torture." Part 2, Chapter 9, pg. 194
Quote 40: "It was the product of a mind similar to his
own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. The best
books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already." Part 2,
Chapter 9, pg. 201
Quote 41: "Even the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was
tolerant by modern standards. Part of the reason for this was that in the past
no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance.
The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion,
and the film and the radio carried the process further. With the development of
television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and
transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end."
Part 2, Chapter 9, pg. 206-7
Quote 42: "the essential act of the Party is to use
conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with
complete honesty." Part 2, Chapter 9, pg. 215
Quote 43: "everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable
figure, made monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and
still singing." Part 2, Chapter 10, pg. 222
Quote 44: "It was more natural to exist from moment to
moment, accepting another ten minutes' life even with the certainty that there
was torture at the end of it." Part 3, Chapter 1, pg. 232
Quote 45: "There were times when it went on and on until
the cruel, wicked, unforgivable thing seemed to him not that the guards
continued to beat him but that he could not force himself into losing
consciousness." Part 3, Chapter 2, pg. 244
Quote 46: "The old feeling, that at bottom it did not
matter whether O'Brien was a friend or an enemy, had come back. O'Brien was a
person who could be talked to... O'Brien had tortured him to the edge of lunacy,
and in a little while, it was certain, he would send him to his death. It made
no difference." Part 3, Chapter 2, pg.255-6
Quote 47: "There was nothing left in them except sorrow
for what they had done, and love of Big Brother. It was touching to see how they
loved him. They begged to be shot quickly, so that they could die while their
minds were still clean." Part 3, Chapter 2, pg. 259
Quote 48: "We control matter because we control the mind.
Reality is inside the skull." Part 3, Chapter 3, pg. 268
Quote 49: "'Do you remember writing in your diary,' he
said, 'that it did not matter whether I was a friend or an enemy, since I was at
least a person who understood you and could be talked to? You were right. I
enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except
that you happen to be insane.'" Part 3, Chapter 2, pg. 271
Quote 50: "It was like swimming against a current that
swept you backwards however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to
turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. Nothing had changed
except your own attitude; the predestined thing happened in any case." Part 3,
Chapter 4, pg. 280
Quote 51: "For the first time he perceived that if you
want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself." Part 3, Chapter 4,
pg. 283
Quote 52: "Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia!
I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not
me! Julia! Not me!" Part 3, Chapter 5, pg. 289
Quote 53: "There were things, your own acts, from which
you could not recover. Something was killed in your breast; burnt out,
cauterized out." Part 3, Chapter 6, pg. 293
Quote 54: "But it was all right, everything was all right,
the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big
Brother." Part 3, Chapter 6, pg. 300
Quote 55: "The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide
a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the
devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible."
Appendix, pg. 303"
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