A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world as a public indecency.

Nobody likes the man who brings bad news.

To live is in itself a value judgment. To breathe is to judge.

You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.

Do not peer too far.

Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.

Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place the come down and shoot the survivors.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.”

I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one is useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.

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.

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.

There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.

The purpose of Propaganda is to make one set of people forget that other sets of people are human.