100+ Thought-Provoking Quotes From Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is a seminal work of dystopian fiction that continues to captivate readers with its chilling portrayal of a totalitarian regime.

Published in 1949, this novel delves into themes of surveillance, censorship, and the manipulation of truth, making it a timeless commentary on the dangers of unchecked political power.

For those exploring Nineteen Eighty-Four Quotes, the novel offers a plethora of powerful and memorable lines that resonate deeply with contemporary issues.

Whether you’re seeking inspirational Nineteen Eighty-Four Quotes or the best quotes from Nineteen Eighty-Four book, this text is rich with poignant and thought-provoking passages.

The thought-provoking quotes from Nineteen Eighty-Four challenge readers to reflect on the nature of freedom, reality, and the human condition, making it a must-read for anyone interested in literature that provokes deep contemplation and discussion.

100+ Thought-Provoking Quotes From Nineteen Eighty-Four

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
“Big Brother is watching you.”
“The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.”
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
“In the face of pain there are no heroes.”
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.”
“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
“Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
“If there was hope, it must lie in the proles.”
“We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.”
“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”
“To die hating them, that was freedom.”
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered.”
“The consequences of every act are included in the act itself.”
“The object of power is power.”
“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable?”
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
“But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”
“The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering—a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons.”
“Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to an ancient time, to a time when there was still privacy, love, and friendship.”
“Sanity is not statistical.”
“The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.”
“If human equality is to be forever averted, if the High are to keep their places permanently—then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.”
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
“Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system.”
“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
“You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”
“He who controls the present controls the past.”
“Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.”
“You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”
“The choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better.”
“But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself.”
“You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word.”
“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”

“It was a political act.”
“You are a slow learner, Winston.”
“The heresy of heresies was common sense.”
“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.”
“They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.”
“But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself.”
“Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
“And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.”
“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.”
“To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone—to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone.”
“For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself.”
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”
“We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”
“The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed—would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper—the essential crime that contained all others in itself.”
“It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.”
“The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime.”
“And when the process was complete, all that remained in you was the dead shell of the human being: utter submission, utter absence of humanity, utter desolation.”
“The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
“The very word ‘war,’ therefore, has become misleading.”
“The machine itself could be made to work efficiently and easily. It was the human element that made all the trouble.”
“There was no escape. The war is continuous.”
“We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission.”
“Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation.”
“The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no windows in it at all.”
“A world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons.”
“There was no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.”
“He who controls the past controls the future.”
“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth.”
“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”
“To die hating them, that was freedom.”
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”
“They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.”
“The command of the old despotisms was ‘Thou shalt not.’ The command of the totalitarians was ‘Thou shalt.’ Our command is ‘Thou art.'”
“For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself.”
“Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
“You are a slow learner, Winston.”
“And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.”
“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.”
“If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones.”
“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.”
“But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself.”
“The choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better.”
“The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.”
“The consequences of every act are included in the act itself.”
“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”
“Power is not a means; it is an end.”
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
“Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system.”
“If there was hope, it must lie in the proles.”
“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.”
“The heresy of heresies was common sense.”
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
“The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought.”
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
“The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering—a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons.”
“And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.”
“But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself.”
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
“Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
“To die hating them, that was freedom.”
“You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”
“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”
“The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no windows in it at all.”
“The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now.”
“We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.”
“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
“The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.”
“You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”
“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth.”
“The machine itself could be made to work efficiently and easily. It was the human element that made all the trouble.”
“There was no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.”
“Sanity is not statistical.”