Why Orwell Matters
Christopher Hitchens
Top 10 Best Quotes
“But what [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that 'views' do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think; and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.”
“Very often, people embarking on such guesswork make the vulgar assumption that the lower the motives, the more likely they are to be authentic.”
“In the late 1940s, a dystopian novel based on the notorious horrors of ‘National Socialism’ would probably have been very well-received. But it would have done nothing to shake the complacency of Western intellectuals concerning the system of state terror for which, at the time, so many of them had either a blind spot or a soft spot.”
“Real rustics are not conscious of being picturesque, they do not construct bird sanctuaries, they are uninterested in any bird or animal that does not affect them directly ... The fact is that those who really have to deal with nature have no cause to be in love with it.”
“*For a fuller account of the revelations of the Moscow archives, and their detailed vindication of Orwell, see my Introduction to Orwell in Spain (Penguin, 2001).”
“the idea that two and two make five, for instance, was suggested by multiple sources. Stalin’s propagandists were fond of saying that they completed the first Five Year Plan in four years; this was sometimes rendered for the simple-minded as 2+2=5.”
“racialism is something totally different. It is the invention not of conquered nations but of conquering nations. It is a way of pushing exploitation beyond the point that is normally possible, by pretending that the exploited are not human beings.”
“With the United Kingdom devolving (or deliquescing, according to taste and interpretation) the assertion of Scottish and Welsh and Irish nationhood was met in the southern nation with an efflorescence of the flag of St George. Sometimes an emblem on pubs or taxis, or on the brawny limbs of soccer fans, its reappearance was often a symptom of insecurity, both about the internal state of the kingdom and the external challenge represented by the idea of ‘Europe’.”
“When intellectuals and artists withdraw from the fray, politicians feel safer.”
“The will to command and to dominate is one thing, but the will to obey and be prostrate is a deadly foe as well.”
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Book Keywords:
ideas, orwell, misunderstanding, truth, motives, principles, assumptions, politics
