Orwell, George Archives - World Quotations

Four legs good, two legs bad.

Animals

Four legs good, two legs bad.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

Defeat

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

A liberal is a power worshipper without the power.

Liberals

A liberal is a power worshipper without the power.

Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.

Progress

Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

War

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

The main motive for nonattachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.

Asceticism

The main motive for nonattachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

Dictators and Dictatorship

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature.

Literature

The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature.

So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot.

Radicals

So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.

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.

War