George Orwell

“Era uno de esos ensueños que, a pesar de utilizar toda la escenografía onírica habitual, son una continuación de nuestra vida intelectual y en los que nos damos cuenta de hechos e ideas que siguen teniendo un valor después del despertar.”

“For whom, for what, was that bird singing? No mate, no rival was watching it. What made it sit at the edge of the lonely wood and pour its music into nothingness?”

“a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.”

“For after all, what is there behind, except money? Money for the right kind of education, money for influential friends, money for leisure and peace of mind, money for trips to Italy. Money writes books, money sells them. Give me not righteousness, O lord, give me money, only money.”

“The heirs of the French, English, and American revolutions had partly believed in their own phrases about the rights of man, freedom of speech, equality before the law, and the like, and have even allowed their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century all the main currents of political thought were authoritarian. The earthly paradise had been discredited at exactly the moment when it became realizable. Every new political theory, by whatever name it called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation. And in the general hardening of outlook that set in round about 1930, practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years — imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages, and the deportation of whole populations — not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.”

“I'm not interested in the next generation, dear. I'm interested in us.' - Julia”

“The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia's life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.”

“When I talk to anyone or read the writings of anyone who has any axe to grind, I feel that intellectual honesty and balanced judgement have simply disappeared from the face of the earth. Everyone’s thought is forensic, everyone is simply putting a “case” with deliberate suppression of his opponent’s point of view, and, what is more, with complete insensitiveness to any sufferings except those of himself and his friends.”

“Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called ‘abolition of private property’ which took place in the middle years of the century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before: but with this difference, that the new owners were a group instead of a mass of individuals.”

“Why should be fruit be held inferior to the flower?”

“In general, one's memories of any period must necessarily weaken as one moves away from it. One is constantly learning new facts, and old ones have to drop out to make way for them. At twenty I could have written the history of my schooldays with an accuracy which would be quite impossible now. But it can also happen that one's memories grow sharper after a long lapse of time, because one is looking at the past with fresh eyes and can isolate and, as it were, notice facts which previously existed undifferentiated among a mass of others.”

“It is one of the tragedies of the half-educated that they develop late, when they are already committed to some wrong way of life.”

“Todos los niños son unos cerdos.”

“But even that was a memorable event in the locked loneliness in which one had to live.”

“Do not imagine that you will save yourself, however completely you surrender to us. No one who has once gone astray is ever spared. And even if we chose to let you live out the natural term of your life, still you would never escape from us. What happens to you here is for ever. Understand that in advance. We shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you could not recover, if you lived a thousand years. Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling.Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”

“You will have to get used to living without results and without hope. You will work for a while, you will be caught, you will confess, and then you will die. Those are the only results that you will ever see. There is no possibility that any perceptible change will happen within our own lifetime. We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future.”

“Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it… All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.”

“Mengapa pengemis direndahkan? Aku yakin alasannya sangat sederhana, yaitu karena mereka gagal hidup layak. Dalam prakteknya, orang tidak peduli apakah suatu pekerjaan itu berguna atau tidak, produktif atau bersifat parasit; satu-satunya hal yang penting adalah bahwa pekerjaan itu harus menguntungkan. Dalam semua perbincangan modern tentang efisiensi, pelayanan sosial dan lain-lain, adakah makna lain selain 'Dapatkan uang, bikin jadi legal, dan dapatkan banyak-banyak'? Uang sudah menjadi alat ukur utama moralitas. Dengan ukuran ini pengemis gagal, dan karenanya mereka direndahkan. Kalau orang bisa berpendapatan sepuluh pound seminggu sebagai pengemis, profesi ini akan segera menduduki posisi terhormat. Seorang pengemis, dilihat secara realistis, adalah sekedar seorang pengusaha yang mencoba bertahan hidup, seperti halnya pengusaha lain, dengan cara menggunakan tangannya. Dia tidak pernah menjual kehormatannya, lebih dari kebanyakan orang modern; dia hanya berbuat kesalahan dengan memilih usaha yang tidak memberinya kemungkinan untuk jadi kaya (hal. 268)”

“Bukan berarti karena tinggal di jalanan lantas tidak bisa berpikir lebih dari sekedar teh dan dua potong roti.”

“Can you not understand that liberty is worth more than just ribbons?”

“Let's face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.”

“Baju adalah sesuatu yang berkuasa. Dengan berpakaian gelandangan, sangat sulit, untuk tidak merasakan bahwa kamu sedang mengalami penurunan status.”

“The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life ... A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors ... Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.”

“Seorang buruh adalah salah satu budak dalam dunia modern. Tidak berarti kita perlu meratapinya, karena dia adalah pekerja lebih ahli dibandingkan banyak pekerja manual, namun tetap saja, dia tidak lebih bebas dari pada budak yang diperjual belikan. Pekerjaannya kasar dan tanpa cita rasa seni, ia dibayar hanya cukup untuk bertahan hidup. Dia tidak mungkin menikah, atau kalaupun dia menikah istrinya harus bekerja juga. Ia tak bisa keluar dari kehidupannya, tetap terpenjara, kecuali ada keberuntungan. Kita tidak bisa mengatakan bahwa itu hanya karena mereka bodoh. Mereka hanya terjebak dalam rutinitas yang tidak memberi kesempatan untuk berpikir. Kalau para budak punya kesempatan untuk berpikir, sudah sejak lama mereka akan membentuk organisasi dan berdemonstrasi menuntut perlakukan yang lebih baik. Tapi mereka tidak berpikir, karena mereka tidak memiliki kemewahan untuk itu, kehidupan telah memperbudak mereka.”

“I'm thirty-nine years old. I've got a wife that I can't get rid of. I've got varicose veins. I've got five false teeth.”

“To think, to think, even with a split second left—to think was the only hope.”

“The one certain thing was that death never came at an expected moment.”

“Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card.”

“Then the face of Big Brother faded away again and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:   WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”

“Koki sangat kasar, tapi dia juga seorang seniman. Karena alasan kemampuan dan ketepatan waktu, dan bukan karena kelebihan dalam keahlian memasak, koki laki-laki lebih disukai daripada perempuan.”

“Bisa dikatakan semakin mahal makanan, semakin banyak keringat dan ludah yang harus dimakan.”

“In a town like London there are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops, because a bookshop is one of the few places where you can hang about for a long time without spending any money.”

“Good prose is like a windowpane.”

“Los altos quieren quedarse donde están; los medianos quieren arrebatarle su puesto a los altos; los bajos quieren abolir todas las distinciones y crear una sociedad en la que todos sean iguales.”

“Su madre tenía una especie de nobleza sólo por el hecho de regirse por normas privadas. Los sentimientos de ella eran realmente suyos y no los que el estado le mandaba tener.”

“Cada año habrá menos palabras, así el radio de acción de la conciencia será cada vez más pequeño.”

“Te figuras que existe algo llamado la naturaleza humana, que se irritará por lo que hacemos y se volverá contra nosotros. Pero no olvides que nosotros creamos la naturaleza humana.”

“La consigna de todos los despotismos era: "No harás esto o lo otro". La voz de mando de los totalitarios era: "Harás esto o aquello". Nuestra orden es: "Eres”

“O'Brien lo había torturado casi hasta enloquecerlo y era seguro que dentro de un rato le haría matar. Pero no importaba. En cierto sentido, más allá de la amistad, eran íntimos”

“El pasado es únicamente lo que digan los testimonios escritos y la memoria humana.”

“Antiguamente, las diferencias de clase no sólo habían sido inevitables, sino deseables. La desigualdad era el precio de la civilización.”

“Morir odiándolos [al Partido], ésa era la libertad.”

“Si pueden obligarme a dejarte de amar... ésa sería la verdadera traición”

“Su abrazo había sido una batalla, el clímax una victoria. Era un golpe contra el Partido. Era un acto político.”

“Se preguntó, como ya lo había hecho muchas veces, si no estaría él loco. Quizás un loco era sólo una "minoría de uno". Hubo una época en que fue señal de locura creer que la Tierra giraba en torno al Sol: ahora, era locura creer que el pasado es inalterable. Quizá fuera él el único que sostenía esa creencia, y, siendo el único, estaba loco. Pero la idea de ser un loco no le afectaba mucho. Lo que le horrorizaba era la posibilidad de estar equivocado.”

“Lo más característico de la vida moderna no era su crueldad ni su inseguridad, sino sencillamente su vaciedad, su absoluta falta de contenido.”

“¿Cómo vas a tener un eslogan como el de "la libertad es la esclavitud" cuando el concepto de libertad no exista? Todo el clima del pensamiento será distinto. En realidad, no habrá pensamiento en el sentido en que ahora lo entendemos. La ortodoxia significa no pensar, no necesitar el pensamiento. Nuestra ortodoxia es la inconsciencia.”

“Su memoria [de Winston] "fallaba" mucho, es decir, no estaba lo suficientemente controlada.”

“En realidad, nada era ilegal, ya que no existían leyes.”

“No se establece una dictadura para salvaguardar una revolución; se hace la revolución para establecer una dictadura”