If one harbours anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible.
George OrwellRead
From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:_x000D_ _x000D_ WAR IS PEACE_x000D_ _x000D_ FREEDOM IS SLAVERY_x000D_ _x000D_ IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The slogans illustrate the contradictory nature of the Party's propaganda, highlighting the manipulation of truth.
George Orwell's quote presents the paradoxical slogans of the Party in his dystopian novel '1984'. Each slogan represents a twisted form of reality where war is maintained to ensure peace, individual freedom is curtailed to achieve safety, and ignorance is exalted as a source of strength. These slogans reflect how totalitarian regimes use language to distort facts and control public perception, prompting readers to question the nature of truth and reality in society.
Themes
PropagandaTruthContradictionSocietyControl
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about totalitarianism and its impact on society.
More from George Orwell
All quotes →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.
George OrwellRead
Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.
George OrwellRead
Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.
George OrwellRead
As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.
George OrwellRead
It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.
George OrwellRead
Similar quotes
Behold now this vast city [London]; a city of refuge, the mansion-house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with His protection.
John MiltonRead
Attainment is followed by neglect, possession by disgust, and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to many another course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last
Samuel JohnsonRead
By speaking, by thinking, we undertake to clarify things, and that forces us to exacerbate them, dislocate them, schematize them. Every concept is in itself an exaggeration.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
She thought about her life and how lost she’d felt for most of it. She thought about the way that all truths she’d been taught to consider valuable invariably conflicted with the world as it was actually lived. How could a person be so utterly lost, yet remain living?
Douglas CouplandRead
What is called Western Civilization is in an advanced state of decomposition, and another Dark Ages will soon be upon us, if, indeed, it has not already begun. With the Media, especially television, governing all our lives, as they indubitably do, it is easily imaginable that this might happen without our noticing...by accustoming us to the gradual deterioration of our values.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
Some foreign investors accuse us of being unfair to shareholders by using our resources for community development. Yes, this is money that could have made for dividend payouts, but it also is money that's uplifting and improving the quality of life of people in the rural areas where we operate and work. We owe them that.
Ratan TataRead