George Orwell - 1984 (1949) book quotes

What, in essence, is more terrible: a “consumer society” taken to the point of absurdity, or a “society of ideas” taken to the absolute? According to Orwell, there is and cannot be anything more terrible than total lack of freedom... “1984” is a cult novel by the English writer George Orwell, which has become the canon of the dystopian genre. It contains fear, despair and the fight against the system that inspire resistance. The author depicted the possible future of humanity as a totalitarian hierarchical system based on sophisticated physical and spiritual enslavement, permeated with universal fear and hatred.

“1984” (English: Nineteen Eighty-Four) is a dystopian novel by George Orwell, published in 1949. The title of the novel, its terminology, and even the name of the author subsequently became common nouns and are used to denote a social structure reminiscent of the totalitarian regime described in the novel “1984.” The novel "1984", along with such works as "We" by Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin (1920), "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley (1932) and "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury (1953), is considered one of the most famous works in the dystopian genre. In 1978, British writer Anthony Burgess wrote the novel 1985, the first part of which is an analysis of Orwell's 1984. The first titles of the novel "1984" were "The Last Man in Europe" and "Live and Died".

Quotes from the book George Orwell - 1984 "BIG BROTHER IS LOOKING AT YOU"

“How often and on what schedule the thought police connect to your cable - one could only guess about that. It is possible that they were watching everyone - and around the clock. In any case, they could connect at any time. You had to live - and you lived, out of habit, which turned into instinct - with the knowledge that your every word was being overheard and your every move, until the lights went out, was being watched.”

“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”

“They housed four ministries, the entire state apparatus: the Ministry of Truth, which was in charge of information, education, leisure and the arts; the Ministry of Peace, which was in charge of the war; the Ministry of Love, which was in charge of maintaining order, and the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for the economy.”

“The Ministry of Love inspired fear. There were no windows in the building."

“It’s curious: he not only lost the ability to express his thoughts, but even forgot what he wanted to say.”

“How will you turn to the future if a trace of yours and even a nameless word is not preserved on earth?”

“The consequences of any action are contained in the action itself.”

“When you cannot turn to outside evidence, even the outlines of your own life lose clarity. You remember great events, but it is possible that they never happened; you remember the details of the incident, but cannot feel its atmosphere; and there are also empty intervals, long and not marked by anything at all.”

“If the party can reach into the past and say about this or that event that it never happened, this is worse than torture or death.”

“Who controls the past,” says the party slogan, “controls the future; He who controls the present controls the past."

“The atmosphere of thinking will become different. There will be no thinking at all in our modern meaning. A true believer does not think—does not need to think.”

“The party sought to kill the sexual instinct, and since it is impossible to kill, then at least pervert and dirty it.”

“Left to themselves, like cattle on the plains of Argentina, they always returned to the way of life that was natural to them - following in the footsteps of their ancestors. They are born, grow up in the dirt, start working at twelve, experience a short period of physical flourishing and sexuality, get married at twenty, are no longer young at thirty, and usually die by sixty. Hard physical work, caring for home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, cinema, football, beer and, most importantly, gambling - that’s all that fits into their horizons. They are easy to manage." … “It is considered undesirable for the proles to take much interest in politics. All that is required of them is primitive patriotism - to appeal to it when it comes to lengthening the working day or reducing rations. And if dissatisfaction takes possession of them - this has also happened - this discontent does not lead to anything, because due to the lack of general ideas it is directed only against small specific troubles. Big troubles invariably eluded their attention. "... "As the party slogan says: “Proles and animals are free.”

“The most characteristic thing in life today is not its cruelty or instability, but simply squalor, dullness, apathy.”

“Even for a party member, most of his life is spent outside of politics: you work hard at a tedious job, fight for a seat in a subway car, mend a holey sock, beg for a saccharine tablet, finish a cigarette butt.”

“The party ideal is something gigantic, menacing, sparkling: a world of steel and concrete, monstrous machines and terrible weapons, a country of warriors and fanatics who march in a single formation, think one thought, shout one slogan, work tirelessly, fight, triumph, punish - three hundred million people - and all look the same. In life there are slum cities, where unfed people in thin shoes scurry about, dilapidated houses of the nineteenth century, where there is always the smell of cabbage and outhouses.”

“The past doesn’t just change, it changes continuously.”

“I understand HOW; I do not understand why."

“He wondered, as he had wondered more than once, whether he himself was crazy. Maybe the crazy one is the one who is in the minority, in the singular. It was once crazy to think that the Earth revolved around the Sun; today - that the past is unchangeable. Perhaps he is the only one who holds this belief, and if he is the only one, that means he is crazy.”

“The heresy of heresies is common sense.”

“If both the past and the external world exist only in consciousness, and consciousness can be controlled - then what?”

“The Party told you not to believe your eyes and ears.”

“Freedom is the ability to say that two and two are four. If this is allowed, everything else follows from here.”

“A party member has no free time, and he is alone with himself only in bed. When he is not occupied with work, eating, and sleeping, he is expected to take part in public amusements; everything in which one can discern a love of solitude, even a walk without companions, is suspicious. There is a word for this in Newspeak: samojit - meaning individualism and eccentricity.”

“It wasn’t forbidden to take different routes home, but if the thought police found out, that’s enough for you to be taken into account.”

“The lottery, with its fabulous weekly winnings, was the only social event that excited the proles. Probably millions of people saw in it the main, if not the only thing worth living for. It was their delight, their madness, their relaxation, their intellectual stimulation.”

“In the absence of a real connection between the individual parts of Oceania, this was not difficult to arrange.”

“The hunt for books and destruction were carried out in the proles’ quarters as thoroughly as elsewhere. There was hardly a single copy of a book published before 1960 in all of Oceania.”

“I didn’t know it was a church,” he said. “Actually, there are a lot of them left,” said the old man, “only they are used for other needs.”

“In critical moments, a person fights not with an external enemy, but always with his own body. "

“The habit of not showing your feelings has become so ingrained that it has become an instinct.”

“If you follow the small rules, you can break the big ones.”

“The smart one is the one who breaks the rules and still remains alive.”

“Unlike Winston, she understood the meaning of Puritanism instilled by the party. The point is not only that the sexual instinct creates its own world, which is not subject to the control of the party, and therefore should be destroyed if possible. More importantly, sexual hunger causes hysteria, which is desirable because it can be transformed into military frenzy and leader worship.”

“When you sleep with a person, you waste energy; and then you feel good and don’t care at all. It's in their throats. They want the energy in you to bubble constantly. All this marching, shouting, waving flags - just rotten sex. If you are happy in yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother, three-year plans, two minutes of hatred and other vile nonsense?

“There is a direct and close connection between temperance and political orthodoxy. How else to heat up hatred, fear and cretinous gullibility to the required degree, if not by tightly sealing some powerful instinct so that it turns into fuel? Sexual desire was dangerous for the party, and the party put it at its service.”

“The rockets falling on London may be launched by the government itself to keep people in fear. Such a thought simply never occurred to him.”

“How easy it is to pretend to be ideological without even having a concept of the ideas themselves. In a sense, the party's worldview was most successfully instilled in people who were unable to understand it. They agree with the most blatant distortions of reality, because they do not understand the ugliness of the substitution and, having little interest in social events, do not notice what is happening around them. Lack of understanding saves them from madness. They swallow everything, and what they swallow does not harm them, does not leave a residue, just as a grain of corn passes undigested through the intestines of a bird.”

“If you feel that it’s worth remaining human, even if it doesn’t give you anything, you still defeated them.”

“They cannot change your feelings; for that matter, you yourself cannot change them, even if you want to. They can find out to the smallest detail everything you did, said and thought, but the soul, whose movements are mysterious even to yourself, remains impregnable."

“The Brotherhood cannot be destroyed because it is not an organization in the usual sense. It is not held together by anything except the idea, and the idea is indestructible. You will have nothing to rely on except the idea.”

“The main goal of modern war (in accordance with the principle of doublethink, this goal is both recognized and not recognized by the leading head of the inner party) is to use up the production of the machine without raising the general standard of living.”

“A hierarchical society is based only on poverty and ignorance.”

“The essence of war is the destruction of not only human lives, but also the fruits of human labor. War is a way to smash into pieces, disperse into the stratosphere, drown in the depths of the sea, materials that could improve the lives of the people and thereby ultimately make them smarter. Even when weapons are not destroyed on the battlefield, their production is a convenient way to waste human labor and produce nothing for consumption."

“From any, even the most inconspicuous member of the party, knowledge of the matter, hard work and even intelligence within narrow limits are required, but it is also necessary that he be an unquestioning, ignorant fanatic and fear, hatred, blind worship and orgiastic delight reign in his soul. In other words, his mentality must correspond to the state of war."

“It doesn’t matter whether the war is actually going on, and since there can be no decisive victory, it doesn’t matter whether things are going well or poorly at the front. One thing is needed: to be in a state of war.”

“All three powers follow, or claim to be following, the same strategy. Its idea is to completely surround the enemy with a ring of military bases through military operations, negotiations and timely treasonous moves, conclude a friendship pact with him and maintain peace for several years in order to lull all suspicions. In the meantime, missiles with nuclear warheads can be mounted at all strategic points and finally deliver a massive strike, so destructive that the enemy will be deprived of the possibility of a retaliatory strike. Then it will be possible to sign a friendship treaty with a third world power and prepare for a new attack.”

“In the past, war was one of the main tools that did not allow society to break away from physical reality. At all times, all rulers have tried to impose false ideas about reality on their subjects; but they could not afford illusions that undermined military strength.”

“Thus, the war, if we approach it by the standards of past wars, is a fraud. It is reminiscent of the fights of some ruminant animals, whose horns grow at such an angle that they are unable to hurt each other. But although war is unreal, it is not meaningless. It devours surplus goods and allows you to maintain a special spiritual atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. Nowadays, as is easy to see, war is a purely internal matter. In the past, the rulers of all countries, although they sometimes understood the commonality of their interests and therefore limited the destructiveness of wars, still fought with each other, and the winner robbed the vanquished. These days they don't fight each other. The war is waged by the ruling group against its subjects, and the purpose of the war is not to avoid the seizure of its territory, but to preserve the social order. Therefore, the very word “war” is misleading.”

“The book fascinated him, or rather, strengthened him. In a sense, the book told him nothing new - but that was its charm. She said what he himself could have said if he had been able to organize his fragmentary thoughts. She was the product of a mind similar to his, only much stronger, more systematic and not ulcerated by fear. The best books, he realized, tell you what you already know.”

“When printing was invented, it became easier to control public opinion; radio and cinema made it possible to step even further in this direction. And with the development of television technology, when it became possible to receive and transmit with one device, private life came to an end.”

“The masses never rebel on their own and they never rebel only because they are oppressed. Moreover, they do not even realize that they are oppressed until they are given the opportunity to compare.”

“The first and simplest level of discipline, which even children can learn, is called self-stop in Newspeak. Self-stop means the instinctive ability to stop on the threshold of a dangerous thought.”

“If, for example, today the enemy is Eurasia (or Eastasia, it doesn’t matter who), then it has always been the enemy. And if the facts say otherwise, then the facts must be changed. This is how history is continuously rewritten.”

“Whoever rules and intends to continue to rule needs the ability to distort the sense of reality. For the secret of dominion is to combine faith in one’s infallibility with the ability to learn from past mistakes.”

“In our society, those who are most aware of what is happening are the least able to see the world as it is.”

“The Ministry of Peace deals with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture, the Ministry of Plenty with hunger.”

“Only the reconciliation of contradictions allows one to maintain power indefinitely.”

“If human equality is to be made forever impossible, if the superiors, as we call them, want to maintain their place forever, then the dominant state of mind must be controlled madness.”

“Just because you’re in the minority—even in the singular—doesn’t mean you’re crazy. There is truth and there is untruth, and if you adhere to the truth, even in defiance of the whole world, you are not mad.”

“He who controls the past controls the future; He who controls the present controls the past."

“Perhaps a person does not need love as much as he needs understanding.”

“The party seeks power not for its own sake, but for the benefit of the majority. He seeks power because people for the most part are weak, cowardly creatures, they cannot tolerate freedom, they cannot face the truth, so they must be ruled and systematically deceived by those who are stronger than them. That humanity is faced with a choice: freedom or happiness, and for the vast majority, happiness is better. That the party is the eternal guardian of the weak, an order devoted to the idea, which does evil in the name of good, sacrifices its own happiness for the happiness of others.”

“The dictatorship is not established in order to protect the revolution; revolution is carried out in order to establish a dictatorship.”

“How does a person assert his power over another? Winston thought. “Making him suffer,” he said. Obedience is not enough. If a person is not suffering, how can you be sure that he is doing your will and not his own? Power is about hurting and humiliating. It’s about tearing people’s minds into pieces and putting them back together in whatever form you want.”

Interesting Facts:

* The famous formula “two times two equals five” came to Orwell’s mind when he heard the Soviet slogan “five-year plan in four years.” * The American IT company Apple used references to the novel in a famous commercial directed by Ridley Scott and launched in 1984 in anticipation of the release of the Macintosh. The video features computer manufacturer IBM as Big Brother. * In 2009, the online store Amazon remotely erased the books of the writer George Orwell from Kindle electronic document readers. Users lost electronic copies of the novels “1984” and “Animal Farm,” which, as it turned out, the company does not have the rights to distribute. * 1984 is ranked eighth on the BBC's 200 Best Books list (2003). * In 2009, The Times included 1984 in its list of the 60 best books published in the last 60 years, and Newsweek magazine ranked the novel second on its list of the 100 best books of all time. At the same time, Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind was awarded 16th place on the list, and the Bible took 41st place. * The book was banned in the USSR until 1988. The 1983 Encyclopedic Philosophical Dictionary says: “Orwell’s ideological legacy is being fiercely fought over by both reactionary, ultra-right forces and petty-bourgeois radicals.” * The novel became the basis for an opera by Lorin Maazel, its world premiere took place in Covent Garden in 2005. * In 2021, the book became a bestseller in the United States, topping the Amazon sales chart. This happened after Kellyanne Conway, adviser to the new US President Donald Trump, said that the president’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, who spoke about a record number of spectators at the inauguration (the statement was not true), was not lying, but cited “alternative facts.”

Quotes from the book "1984"

“It’s just like a phrase from a party textbook,” he thought. The Party, of course, claimed to have freed the proles from their chains. Before the revolution, they were terribly oppressed by the capitalists, starved and flogged, women were forced to work in the mines (by the way, they still work there), children at the age of six were sold to factories. But at the same time, in accordance with the principle of doublethink, the party taught that the proles are by nature inferior beings, they, like animals, must be kept in obedience, guided by a few simple rules. In fact, very little was known about the proles. There is no need to know much. As long as they work and multiply, then let them do whatever they want. Left to their own devices, like cattle on the plains of Argentina, they always returned to the way of life that was natural to them - following in the footsteps of their ancestors. They are born, grow up in the dirt, start working at twelve, experience a short period of physical flourishing and sexuality, get married at twenty, are no longer young at thirty, and usually die by sixty. Hard physical work, caring for home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, cinema, football, beer and, most importantly, gambling - that’s all that fits into their horizons. They are easy to manage. Agents of the thought police always rotate among them - they identify and eliminate those who could become dangerous; but they are not trying to introduce them to the party ideology. It is considered undesirable for proles to have much interest in politics. All that is required of them is primitive patriotism - to appeal to it when it comes to lengthening the working day or reducing rations. And if dissatisfaction takes possession of them - this has also happened - this discontent does not lead to anything, because due to the lack of general ideas it is directed only against small specific troubles. Big troubles invariably eluded their attention. The vast majority of proles don't even have telescreens in their apartments. Regular police deal with them very little. There is enormous crime in London, a whole state within a state: thieves, bandits, prostitutes, drug dealers, extortionists of all stripes; but, since it is isolated among the proles, no attention is paid to it. In all moral matters they are allowed to follow the customs of their ancestors. Party sexual puritanism did not apply to the proles. They are not persecuted for debauchery, divorces are allowed. As a matter of fact, religion would be allowed if the proles showed an inclination towards it. Proles are below suspicion. As the party slogan says: “Proles and animals are free.”

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Tuesday, June 09, 2015 04:35 + to quote book Quotes from George Orwell's book __ "1984" __

On June 8, 1949, George Orwell's novel 1984 was published. "Dilettant" publishes a selection of quotes from this novel. - BIGGER BROTHER IS LOOKING AT YOU. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength

- How will you turn to the future if a trace of yours and even a nameless word does not remain on earth? “It’s not by making yourself heard, but by remaining normal that you preserve a person’s legacy.” - The future or the past - a time when thought is free, people are different from each other and do not live alone, a time where truth is truth and the past does not turn into reality.

Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death. “When you can’t turn to outside evidence, even the outlines of your own life lose clarity. “If the party can reach back into the past and say about this or that event that it never happened, that’s worse than torture or death.” What is true now is true from time to time and forever.

- A true believer does not think - does not need to think. Faithfulness is an unconscious state. — Freedom is the ability to say that two and two are four. If this is allowed, everything else follows from here. “Pain and fear are biologically useless. - In critical moments, a person fights not with an external enemy, but always with his own body. “If you follow the small rules, you can break the big ones.”

Smart is the one who breaks the rules and still remains alive

- As long as a person remains a person, death and life are one and the same. “In a sense, the party’s worldview was most successfully instilled in people who were unable to understand it. “War is a way to smash into pieces, scatter in the stratosphere, drown in the depths of the sea, materials that could improve the lives of the people and thereby ultimately make them smarter. “The best books tell you what you already know.” — Inequality is an immutable law of human life.

- The masses never rebel on their own and never rebel only because they are oppressed. Moreover, they do not even realize that they are oppressed until they are given the opportunity to compare. — The ruling group is the ruling group as long as it is able to appoint heirs. The Party is concerned not with perpetuating its blood, but with perpetuating itself. Who is in power is not important, as long as the hierarchical structure remains unchanged. — No changes in doctrine and political line can be recognized. For to change one’s views, or at least one’s policy, means admitting weakness. “Whoever rules and intends to continue to rule needs the ability to distort the sense of reality. The secret of dominion is to combine faith in one's own infallibility with the ability to learn from past mistakes. Those who believe most in the conquest of the world are those who know that it is impossible

“Just because you’re in the minority—even in the singular—doesn’t mean you’re crazy.” There is truth and there is untruth, and if you adhere to the truth, even in defiance of the whole world, you are not crazy. — Common sense is not a statistical concept. “If there is hope, then it is in the proles.” “It’s human nature to live in the moment; he will agree to extend his life even for ten minutes, even knowing for sure that torture awaits him in the end.” —Has it ever occurred to you that the entire development of our poetry was determined by the poverty of rhymes in the language? - People for the most part are weak, cowardly minded, they cannot endure freedom, they cannot face the truth, therefore they must be ruled and systematically deceived by those who are stronger than them. — Humanity is faced with a choice: freedom or happiness, and for the vast majority, happiness is better. — Power is never seized in order to give it up. Power is not a means; she is the goal. A dictatorship is not established in order to protect the revolution; revolution is carried out in order to establish a dictatorship. The purpose of repression is repression. The purpose of torture is torture. The purpose of power is power.

An individual is just a cell. - An individual has power to the extent that he has ceased to be an individual. “Power consists of inflicting pain and humiliation.” It's about tearing people's minds into pieces and putting them back together in whatever form you want. - The more powerful the party is, the more intolerant it will be; the weaker the resistance, the harsher the despotism. There is always a face to trample

“There will always be intoxication with power, and the further it goes, the stronger, the more acute. Always, every moment, there will be a piercing joy of victory, the pleasure of stepping on a helpless enemy. If you want an image of the future, imagine a boot trampling on a man's face—forever. - Humanity is a party. The rest - outside - mean nothing. “If he thinks he’s flying off the floor and I think I see it at the same time, then that’s the way it is.” - If you want to keep a secret, you have to hide it from yourself.

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Quotes | “War is peace, ignorance is strength.” What Orwell warned about

69 years ago, on June 8, 1949, the dystopian novel “1984” by the British writer and publicist George Orwell was first published. His book became in many ways prophetic for the post-war totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union. In the modern world, this is a reality for some countries and a beacon on a certain border that cannot be crossed for others. LIGA.net recalls the most eloquent quote from the novel “1984”.

About war

“From Winston’s window one could read the three slogans of the Party beautifully written on the white facade:

War is peace.

Freedom is slavery.

Ignorance is strength."

- “We will probably not sin against the truth if we say that, having become constant, the war ceased to be a war.”

“The proletarians will never rise up, not in a thousand years, not in a million. They cannot rebel. There is no need to explain the reason to you; you know it yourself. And if you indulged in dreams of an armed uprising, leave them. There is no way to overthrow the party. The power of the party is forever.”

George Orwell (photo - Radio Liberty)

About "enemies of the people"

“But the very next second he was at one with the people around him, and everything that was said about Goldstein seemed to him the pure truth. At such moments, his secret disgust for Big Brother gave way to adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower above everyone - an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock in the path of the Asian hordes.

“A cute, cocky little boy of about nine jumped up from the table and pointed a toy automatic pistol at Winston. His sister, two years younger, was aiming a piece of wood at him. Both were wearing blue shorts, gray shirts and red ties - the uniform of the Detectives. Winston raised his hands. He felt somehow uneasy. The boy behaved so aggressively that it hardly looked like a game. - You are a traitor! - the boy yelled. - You are a thought criminal! You are a Eurasian spy! I’ll shoot myself, vaporize myself, send myself to the salt mines!...”

About the Tsar - Big Brother

“Big Brother’s face seemed to appear for a few more seconds behind the words of the slogans, as if it was embedded in everyone’s eyes and could not disappear immediately. The small reddish woman jumped up and leaned over the back of the chair in front of her. "My savior!" - she whispered with trembling lips and stretched out her hands to the screen, and then covered her face with her hands. She seemed to be praying."

“For the most part, people are weak and cowardly, not ready for freedom and afraid of the truth, which means that someone strong needs to control them and deceive them.”

About propaganda

“And if everyone accepts the lie imposed by the party, if all documents contain the same song, then this lie settles in history and becomes the truth. “Who controls the past,” says the party slogan, “controls the future; He who controls the present controls the past.”

- “Knowing, not knowing; believe in your truthfulness, telling a deliberate lie; hold two opposing opinions at the same time, understanding that one excludes the other, and being convinced of both; kill logic with logic; reject morality by proclaiming it; to believe that democracy is impossible and that the party is the guardian of democracy...”

- “If you are in the minority - and even in the singular - this does not mean that you are crazy. There is truth and there is untruth, and if you adhere to the truth, even in defiance of the whole world, you are not mad.”

“The party says that Oceania never entered into an alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knows that Oceania was in union with Eurasia just four years ago... And if everyone accepts the lies imposed by the party, if all the documents have the same song, then this lie settles in history and becomes the truth.”

“In times of universal lies, telling the truth is extremism.”

About dictatorship

“The party strives for power solely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others, we are only interested in power. Neither wealth, nor luxury, nor long life, nor happiness - only power, pure power.”

— “How easy it is to pretend to be ideological without even having a concept of the ideas themselves. In a sense, the party's worldview was most successfully instilled in people who were unable to understand it. They agree with the most blatant distortions of reality, because they do not understand the ugliness of the substitution and, having little interest in social events, do not notice what is happening around them. Lack of understanding saves them from madness.”

- “Power is not a means; she is the goal. A dictatorship is not established in order to protect the revolution; revolution is carried out in order to establish a dictatorship. The purpose of repression is repression. The purpose of torture is torture. The goal of power is power.”

“Patriotism by its nature is not aggressive either militarily or culturally. Nationalism is inseparable from the desire for power.”

About the masses

- “Always shout with the crowd - that’s my rule. That's the only way you're safe."

“The masses never rebel on their own and they never rebel only because they are oppressed. Moreover, they do not even know that they are oppressed until they are given the opportunity to compare.”

In 1984, Apple released an advertisement for its Macintosh computer using the plot of Orwell's novel. In the video, Big Brother addresses a gray crowd, proclaiming the “victories” of his regime.

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Read the prophetic quotes of the British writer and publicist George Orwell about power and rulers, about poor people, freedom of speech and you will see how relevant they are today ...

So, first, a few lines about the author of the book “1984” - George Orwell.

George Orwell is the pseudonym of an English writer and publicist, whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair (1903-1950).

His dystopian novel 1984 , published in 1949, is about the fictional state of Oceania. The novel has been translated into more than 65 languages. Since its publication, the book has sold 30 million copies and remains a bestselling fiction book to this day.

British intelligence services suspected Orwell of collaborating with the USSR, and in the Soviet Union his books were banned as an evil satire on socialism.

So what were George Orwell's real political views?

Today his book “1984” is used to criticize socialism.

But the whole paradox of the situation is that George Orwell was worried about the problems of inequality, poverty and misery of people all his life.

In his life, Orwell had the opportunity to be a beggar himself, living at odd jobs.

In his 1946 essay “Why I Write,” Orwell stated:

“Every line of serious work I have written since 1936 has been directed, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”

In the West, they were always aware that Orwell professed socialism all his life and actually criticized NOT the Soviet Union, but the deceit and viciousness of Western “democracy”, which makes the minority rich. and the majority are poor.

The main motives of the novel “1984” are the danger of restricting personal freedoms and the transition to an authoritarian Bonapartist dictatorship.

And now I turn to quotes from George Orwell from his book “1984” that are relevant, in my opinion, for you and me.

My value judgment is that these quotes simply amazingly reflect the internal political and socio-economic situation in our country.

Read, think and draw the right conclusions...

On freedom of speech:

“..At the moment when the dominant point of view is questioned, the principle of freedom of speech fails...”

On the goals of the power “elite” and the goals of the poor people:

“..The goal of the higher ones is to stay where they are.

The goal of the middle ones is to change places with the higher ones, the goal of the lower ones is when they have a goal, because it is characteristic of the lower ones that they are crushed by hard work and only from time to time direct their gaze beyond the limits of everyday life - to abolish all differences and create a society where all people should be equal..."

What is a hierarchical society based on?

“..Ultimately, a hierarchical society is based only on poverty and ignorance...”

About what kind of society can be considered totalitarian:

“...A society can be considered totalitarian when all its structures become blatantly artificial, that is, when the ruling class has lost its purpose, but clings to power by force or fraud...”

About when the people will “see the light” and become conscious:

“...They will never rebel until they become conscious, and they will not become conscious until they rebel...”

On the government’s denigration of the Soviet past:

“The past has been cleaned up, the erasure is forgotten, the lie has become the truth.”

About which people are easier for authorities to govern:

“Left to themselves, they always returned to the way of life that was natural for them...

They are born, grow up in the dirt, begin to work, experience a short period of physical flourishing and sexuality, get married at twenty, are no longer young at thirty, and usually die by sixty.

Hard physical work, caring for home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, cinema, football, beer and, most importantly, gambling - that’s all that fits into their horizons.

They are easy to manage."

Before moving on to the next quote, I want to explain to readers who Orwell means when he uses the word “proles.” Proles is a term used by George Orwell in his dystopian novel 1984 to refer to the non-party proletariat. So let’s move on to the quote, which expresses the opinion of the authorities about what the people should be like:

“...It is considered undesirable for the proles to have much interest in politics.

All that is required of them is primitive patriotism - to appeal to it when it comes to lengthening the working day or reducing rations.

And if dissatisfaction takes possession of them - this has also happened - this discontent does not lead to anything, because due to the lack of general ideas it is directed only against small specific troubles.

Big troubles invariably eluded their attention...”

About power and rulers:

.”…Whoever rules and intends to continue to rule needs the ability to distort the sense of reality.

For the secret of dominion is to combine faith in one’s infallibility with the ability to learn from past mistakes...”

Agree, very fresh and relevant. As if it were said about our life...

What do you, dear readers, think about this?