"Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties." Notes on Nationalism

"There are occasions when it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all." Homage to Catalonia

"Looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally." Why I Write

"Patriotism has nothing to do with Conservatism. It is actually the opposite of Conservatism, since it is a devotion to something that is always changing and yet is felt to be mystically the same. It is the bridge between the future and the past." The Lion and the Unicorn

"Public-school [elite private] education is partly a training in class prejudice and partly a sort of tax that the middle classes pay to the upper class in return for the right to enter certain professions." The Lion and the Unicorn (P.S. I strongly recommend Robert Verkaik's excellent book)

"Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves the interests of no creature except himself." - Animal Farm

"A deliberately austere Christmas would be an absurdity. The whole point of Christmas is that it is a debauch - as it was probably long before the birth of Christ was arbitrarily fixed at that date." As I Please (Dec 20th, 1946)

"Once in power, the same dilemma would always have faced it [the Labour party]: carry out your promise, and risk revolt, or continue with the same policy as the Conservatives, and stop talking about Socialism." The Lion and the Unicorn

"Almost entirely we are governed by the rich, and by people who step into positions of command by right of birth. Few if any of these people are consciously treacherous, some of them are not even fools, but as a class they are quite incapable of leading us to victory." The Lion and the Unicorn

The Lion and the Unicorn

I agree with you, tbh (hence the provocative photo). However, I don't think the majority of the population are with us. Yet...

"[In England] the totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root." The Lion and the Unicorn

"Pure’ pacifism, which is a by-product of naval power, can only appeal to people in very sheltered positions. Moreover, being negative and irresponsible, it does not inspire much devotion." The Lion and the Unicorn

"Mechanisation leads to the decay of taste, the decay of taste leads to demand for machine-made articles and hence to more mechanisation, and so a vicious circle is established." The Road to Wigan Pier

"One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England." The Road to Wigan Pier

"It is a mysterious thing, the loss of faith - as mysterious as faith itself." A Clergyman's Daughter

"So often like this, in lonely places in the forest, he would come upon something - bird, flower, tree - beautiful beyond all words, if there had been a soul with whom to share it. Beauty is meaningless until it is shared." Burmese Days

"A dull, decent people, cherishing and fortifying their dullness behind a quarter of a million bayonets." Burmese Days

“It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level.” Down and Out in Paris and London

"You can possess money, or you can despise money; the one fatal thing is to worship money and fail to get it." Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Homage to Catalonia

“For before you can be sure whether you are genuinely in favour of socialism, you have got to decide whether things at present are tolerable or not tolerable, and you have got to take up a definite attitude on the terribly difficult issue of class.” The Road to Wigan Pier

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” 1984

"The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.” 1984

"If all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed - if all records told the same tale - then the lie passed into history and became truth." 1984

“This is the inevitable fate of the sentimentalist. All his opinions change into their opposites at the first brush of reality.” The Road to Wigan Pier

1984

"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

"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship." 1984

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." 1984