| Wisdom of George Orwell (1903-1950) | ||
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Wisdom of George Orwell (1903-1950)
Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper. During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. Liberal: a power worshipper without power. Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness. People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism. Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history. There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them. War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent. We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun. Myths which are believed in tend to become true. Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. The Most Effective Way to Destroy a people is to Deny and Obliterate their own Understanding of their History. - George Orwell (1903–1950) |
