"The Road to Wigan Pier" Quotes

So long as the Proles continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern...Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.

There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when 'our' side commits it.

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.

Perhaps a man really dies when his brain stops, when he loses the power to take in a new idea.

At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.

Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.

The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.

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

The past was dead, the future was unimaginable.

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