In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. “Talking to her, he realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. “To hang on from day to day and from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed an unconquerable instinct, just as one’s lungs will always draw the next breath so long as there is air available.”ġ9. If you’re happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?”ġ8. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. “When you make love you’re using up energy and afterwards you feel happy and don’t give a damn for anything. “If you kept the small rules you could break the big ones.”ġ7. When you put it in words it sounded reasonable: it was when you looked at the human beings passing you on the pavement that it became an act of faith.”ġ6. “But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. “Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.”ġ5. “It struck him as curious that you could create dead men but not living ones.”ġ4. “It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another.”ġ3. Who controls the present controls the past.”ġ2. “Who controls the past controls the future.

Here are the lines I highlighted in the book and found most noteworthy, in order of when they appear in the book:ġ1. I recently read 1984 in its entirety for the first time. “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”ġ0. “We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”ĩ. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-for ever.”Ĩ. “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”ħ. “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”Ħ.

“The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.”ĥ. Who controls the present controls the past.”ģ. “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”Ģ. If you’re wondering what the most popular 1984 quotes are, here are the ten lines from the book with the highest number of votes on Goodreads, ranging from 15,000+ to 2,200+ votes.ġ. 1984 Quotes for Sharing on Social Media.

1984 by george orwell