The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
Tag: George Orwell
(1903-1950) British author.
Loss of freedom means loss of rights
Threats to freedom of speech, writing, and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.
Truth can be revolutionary
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Truth vs. lies
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.
Why we have wars
War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
Cheerleading for war
All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
Politics are everywhere
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.
Challenging the orthodoxy
At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to state this or that or the other, but it is “not done” … Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.
Seeing the obvious
To see what is in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle.
How low we’ve sunk
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.