If there really is such a thing as turning in one's grave, Shakespeare must get a lot of exercise.

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.

Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable.

The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon.

If he thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens.

All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.

I do not wish to comment on the work; if it does not speak for itself, it is a failure.