Table Of Contents
1. George Orwell Books List
2. George Orwell Book Summaries
3. George Orwell's Quotes On Journalism
4. George Orwell's Quotes On Nationalism
5. George Orwell's Quotes On Totalitarianism
6. George Orwell's Quotes On Truth
7. George Orwell's Writing Rules
8. Suggested Resources On George Orwell
9. Where Is George Orwell Buried?
George Orwell Books List
George Orwell Book Summaries
George Orwell's Quotes On Journalism
- The journalist is unfree and conscious of unfreedom when he gets forced to write lies or suppress what seems important news. The imaginative writer is unfree when he has to falsify his subjective feelings, which are facts from his point of view.
- And so far as freedom of expression is concerned, there is not much difference between a mere journalist and the most 'unpolitical' imaginative writer.
George Orwell's Quotes On Nationalism
- Nationalism is inseparable from the desire for power. Every nationalist's abiding purpose is to secure more power, not for himself, but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his individuality.
- In the broad sense, nationalism includes such movements and tendencies as Communism, political Catholicism, Zionism, Antisemitism, Trotskyism and Pacifism. It does not necessarily mean loyalty to a government or a country.
- Nationalists see history as the constant rise and decline of great power units. And, every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his side is on the up.
- The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest and can stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him.
- Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty. He is also - since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself, unshakably sure of being in the right.
- There is always a temptation to claim that any book whose tendency one disagrees with must be a bad book from a literary point of view.
- No nationalist ever thinks, talks, or writes about anything except his power unit.
- One quite commonly finds that great national leaders, or the founders of nationalist movements, do not even belong to the country they have glorified. Examples are Stalin, Hitler, Napoleon, de Valera, Disraeli, Poincaré, Beaverbrook.
- Nationalists do not see the resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency.
- History gets described in mainly nationalist terms. As such, defining events become morally neutral or even admirable when it gets felt that they got done for the right reason.
- Nationalists have a remarkable capacity for not hearing about atrocities committed by his side.
- Although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, the nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world.
George Orwell's Quotes On Totalitarianism
- From the totalitarian point of view, history is something to be created rather than learned.
- A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial. That is when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.
- One doesn't have to live in a totalitarian country to become corrupted by it.
- Many scientists, for example, are the uncritical admirers of the U.S.S.R. They appear to think that the destruction of liberty is of no importance so long as their line of work is, for the moment, unaffected.
George Orwell's Quotes On Truth
- No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.
- In England, the immediate enemies of truthfulness, hence freedom of thought, are the press lords, the film magnates, and the bureaucrats. On a long view, the weakening of the desire for liberty among the intellectuals themselves is the most severe symptom.
George Orwell's Writing Rules
- Never use a metaphor, simile or other figures of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a phrase out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive where you can use the active.
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Suggested Resources On George Orwell
Where Is George Orwell Buried?
George Orwell's resting place is at All Saints Church under his name Eric Arthur Blair. The church is in Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, England.
Unbeknown to some, Orwell's grave sits opposite a longtime friend of his, David Astor, a newspaper editor. Astor paid for Orwell's resting place.
