...every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures.

Snobbishness, like hypocrisy, is a check upon behaviour whose value from a social point of view has been underrated.

A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened.

It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that the party was trying to achieve.

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

Joyce is a poet and also an elephantine pedant.