Top 101 Quotes by George Orwell

Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child's eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below.

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

Those who 'abjure' violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.