The best Quotes from Orwell's 1984

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.

For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable - what then?

Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love.

If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.

Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

Nothing good is born from lies. And greatness is not what you think.

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

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

Welcome to the future. Life is good, but it can be better. And why shouldn’t it be? All you need is to want it. Think about finally having everything you always wanted.

Barbara Minerva: "Have you ever been in love?"
Diana Prince: "A long, long time ago."

It's all art. [Steve looks at a trash can] Uh, that's just a trash can.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.

Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

All men are enemies. All animals are comrades.

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

Everyone is fighting their own battle, Diana. Just as you're fighting yours.

I used to want to save the world. This beautiful place. But I knew so little then. It is a land of magic and wonder. Worth cherishing in every way. But the closer you get, the more you see the great darkness shimmering within.

The future is easy because it doesn't exist; but the past is painful because it lives forever.

Maybe the past is like an anchor holding us back. Maybe you have to let go of who you were, to become who you will be.

Saphira: "Live in the present, remember the past, and fear not the future, for it doesn't exist and never shall. There is only now."

Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.

Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!

It takes much more courage to be in love than it does for war.

People live their lives bound by what they accept as correct and true. That's how they define reality. But what does it mean to be correct or true? Merely vague concepts. Their reality may all be a mirage. Can we consider them to simply be living in their own world, shaped by their beliefs?

What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea! Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate.

He that traveleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.

This is how liberty dies - with thunderous applause!