The quotations of

George Orwell

British writer and journalist

1903–1950

39 quotes, most often on Politics, Patriotism and Writing. Part of the Writers collection.

At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question.
“The Freedom of the Press”, unused preface to Animal Farm (1945), published in Times Literary Supplement (15 September 1972)
- Ideas
- Thinking
Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
Review of A Coat of Many Colours: Occasional Essays by Herbert Read, Poetry Quarterly (Winter 1945)
Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.
Notes on Nationalism (1945)
- Patriotism
- Power
When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page. It is not necessarily the actual face of the writer.
Charles Dickens (1939)
- Reading
- Writing
A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.
The Prevention of Literature (1946)
- Government
- Power
By “nationalism” I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled “good” or “bad.”
Notes on Nationalism (1945)
- Patriotism
- Politics
I consider that willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty.
Letter to John Middleton Murry (5 August 1944), published in The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters, George Orwell: As I Please, 1943-1945 (2000), edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus
- Politics
- Truth & Lies
Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism.
Notes on Nationalism (1945)
- Patriotism
- Politics
Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it.
“Why I Write”, Gangrel (Summer 1946)
- Politics
- Writing

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