From the totalitarian point of view, history is something to be created rather than learned.

The secret of a successful restaurant is sharp knives.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

And yet, just for a moment, what almost frightening power had sounded in that cry from only a few hundred throats! Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered?

The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existance, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it.

Every life viewed from the inside is a series of defeats.

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