It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it.

About George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) 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 (both authoritarian communism and fascism), and support of democratic...

More quotations from George Orwell

People in general are scared to death of the war and all the exhibition have been a failure, because the rich—don't want to buy anything.

—George Orwell

war

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

—George Orwell

equality

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

—George Orwell

Virtue consisted in winning: it consisted in being bigger, stronger, handsomer, richer, more popular, more elegant, more unscrupulous than other people—in dominating them, bullying them, making them suffer pain, making them look foolish, getting the better of them in every way. Life was hierarchical and whatever happened was right. There were the strong, who deserved to win and always did win, and there were the weak, who deserved to lose and always did lose, everlastingly.

—George Orwell

virtue pain winning bullying domination

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.

—George Orwell

More quotations tagged with “thinking”

You're stressing too much about what might be. Do something to take your mind off thinking about what might never happen.

—Simone Elkeles in Leaving Paradise

thinking possibility worry stress

Best to live lightly, unthinkingly.

—Sophocles

ignorance thinking

It is well to think well; it is divine to act well.

—Horace Mann

action thinking divinity

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.

—Bertrand Russell

death logic thinking reason

Thinking is one thing no one has ever been able to tax.

—Charles Kettering

politics thinking taxation

History

16 Jan 2016 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it.