George Orwell

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Biography of George Orwell
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Quote	Categories	Rating	Rate
"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."	Philosophy
"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."	Wisdom
"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows, that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention."	Art
"It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane."	Art
"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."	Fear
"War is war. The only good human being is a dead one."	Fear
"The party is not concerned with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, providing that the hierarchical structure always remains the same."	Fear
"Ignorance and prejudice are the ballast of our ship of state - however, ships without ballast are not seaworthy and cannot sail in the tempests, nor reach a safe harbor."	Fear
"A humanitarian is always a hypocrite."	Success, Insults
"The prime necessities for success in life are money, athleticism, tailor made clothes and a charming smile."	Wisdom
"Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness"	Wisdom
"One ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark, its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time, one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase - some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno or other lump of verbal refuse - into the dustbin where it belongs."	Politics
"I loathed the game, and since I could see no pleasure or usefulness in it, it was very difficult for me to show courage at it. Football, it seemed to me, is not really played for the pleasure of kicking a ball about, but is a species of fighting."	Economics, Soccer
"He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past."	Power

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Art	Economics	Fear
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Wisdom