There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.

Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain.

Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature.

You're only a rebel from the waist downwards,' he told her.

In the face of pain there are no heroes.