The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun.

Power-worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

A dirty joke is not, of course, a serious attack on morality, but it is a sort of mental rebellion, a momentary wish that things were otherwise.

Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.

But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.