George Orwell

"To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization."

"War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent."

"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

"In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia."

"In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."

"Serious sport is war minus the shooting."

"War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil."

"Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia."

"A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase."

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

"As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents."

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

"For a creative writer possession of the 'truth' is less important than emotional sincerity."

"I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment."

"If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?"

"Liberal: a power worshipper without power."

"Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be."

"Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception."

"No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer."

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

"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."

"Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice."

"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."

"The best books... are those that tell you what you know already."

"To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others."

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."