George Orwell Freedom Quotations

Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

The relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.

In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.

Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.

Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip.

To say "I accept" in an age like our own is to say that you accept concentration-camps, rubber truncheons, Hitler, Stalin, bombs, aeroplanes, tinned food, machine guns, putsches, purges, slogans, Bedaux belts, gas-masks, submarines, spies, provocateurs, press-censorship, secret prisons, aspirins, Hollywood films and political murder.

Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.

Freedom is the right to tell others what they don't want to hear.

True freedom is the right to say something that others don't want to hear.

Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose

Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.