War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.
Author
George Orwell
71 quotations
About George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism.
Read on Wikipedia → Find books by George OrwellThe essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.
War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
Oceania was at war with Eurasia therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent.
There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more of less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.
Serious sport is war minus the shooting.
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War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
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.
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minu…
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.
No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.
For a creative writer possession of the 'truth' is less important than emotional sincerity.
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
The intellectual is different from the ordinary man, but only in certain sections of his personality, and even then not all the time.
On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.
In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minu…
Society has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.
As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.