The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

He would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies.

It was with the last revolution and the coming of INGSOC (Inglish/English Socialism) that the latest High learnt how to keep their position permanently - by cultivating ignorance among the other classes and by constantly surveying them through the Thought Police. Part of this strategy included the maintenance of a state of continual warfare, which Goldstein discussed in the third chapter. The three major powers were not fighting this perpetual war for victory; they were fighting to keep a state of emergency always present as the surest guarantee of authoritarianism.

We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.

The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.

Between pigs and human beings there was not and there need not be any clash of interest whatsoever.

I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.