11 reasons why people should start reading and learning instead of just being intrested in plain entertainment, and slowly getting stupified by society. This book was written in 1948, and shows us a terrible vieuw of the future. Altough most of the stuff hasnt turned out like Orwell wrote it, there are lots of terrible points he made out, that are still true today. Enjoy, or rather... think about it!





- If there is hope, it lies in the proles.

- Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice; at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire.
They only needed to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shakes off flies. If they choose they could blow the party to pieces tomorrow morning.
Surely, it must occur to them to do it?

- Until They become concious they will never rebel, and until they have rebelled they cannot become concious.

- Very little was known about the proles. So long as they 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 revertered to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, of a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at 12, they passed through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at 20, they were middle-aged at 30, they died for the most part at 60. Heavy Physical, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, beer, football, and above all, gambling.
Too keep them in control was not difficult. A few members of the Tought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings.
All that was required of them was a primitive "patriotism" wich could be appealed to whenever it was nesscesary to make them accept longer working-hours or shorter rations.
And even when they become discontent, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.
~George Orwell~
- 1984 - ... and this book was written in 1948

Freedom is the freedom to say two plus two is four. If that is granted, all else follows.
~George Orwell~
- 1984 -

What the party wants: "a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting - three hundred million people all with the same face."
~George Orwell~
- 1984 -

She only questioned the teachings of the Party when they in some way touched upon her own life. Often she was ready to accept the official mythology, simply because the difference between truth and falsehood did not seem important to her.
~George Orwell~
- 1984 -

The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world.
~George Orwell~
- 1984 -

It's the one thing they can't do.
They can make you say anything - anything - but they can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you.
~George Orwell~
- 1984 -

The consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.
~George Orwell~
- 1984 -

It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.
~George Orwell~
- 1984 -

The essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty.
~George Orwell~
- 1984 -

It was like swimming against a current that swept you backwards however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. Nothing had changed except your own attitude; the predestined thing happened in any case.
~George Orwell~
- 1984 -

We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull.
~George Orwell~
- 1984 -