I understand HOW. I do not understand WHY

At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question.

Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered?

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

But the thing that I saw in your face no power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit.