22 George Orwell Quotes to Make You Stop and Think

George Orwell was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. He was a man of strong opinions who wrote on some major topics related to the political views and movements of his times.

His best known novels are Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to enjoy the success of the last one, as he passed away one year after the book was published. Both novels have been turned into films and have enjoyed incredible popularity.

Orwell’s work had a great impact on popular and political culture. Many of his neologisms entered the language together with the term Orwellian, which describes a situation, idea, or societal condition identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society.

The New York Times ranked Orwell second on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945” and in 2016, a statue of him was installed in front of the BBC in London.

Orwell had a high moral sense and respect for justice.

Here are 22 George Orwell quotes to make you stop and think:

In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.

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

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

In the face of pain there are no heroes.

Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.

Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.

To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.

If you can feel that staying human is worthwhile, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them.

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.

If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.

A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices.

The distinguishing mark of man is the hand, the instrument with which he does all his mischief.

In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane.