1984 (George Orwell)

Today would have been 120th George Orwell’s birthday. It is only apposite to remember a few of his incisive quotes. The quotes below come from one of his books (1984):

• Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.
• Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
• If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.
• Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
• In the face of pain there are no heroes.
• Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.
• Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
• The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.
• For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?
• Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.
• Sanity is not statistical.
• The consequences of every act are included in the act itself.
• The end was contained in the beginning.
• The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.
• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.