George Orwell

“In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.”

“There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.”

“Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.”

“Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.”

“Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.”

“Joyce is a poet and also an elephantine pedant.”

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”

“War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.”

“Liberal: a power worshipper without power.”

“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.”

“Serious sport is war minus the shooting.”

“Myths which are believed in tend to become true.”

“Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.”

“The intellectual is different from the ordinary man, but only in certain sections of his personality, and even then not all the time.”

“A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.”

“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.”

“Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.”