Quotes About Truth

Y si todos los demás aceptaban la mentira que impuso el partido, si todos los testimonios decían lo mismo, entonces la mentira pasaba a la Historia y se convertía en verdad.

Ä°nsan? ürküten baÅŸka türlü düÅŸündüÄŸü için öldürülmek deÄŸil, onlar?n hakl? olabilecekleri olas?l???yd?.

Um dos mais tristes efeitos desta guerra foi ensinar-me que a imprensa esquerdista é tão falsa e desonesta quanto a da direita.

Belki bir deli tek kiÅŸilik bir az?nl?kt?. Bir zamanlar, dünyan?n güneÅŸ çevresinde döndüÄŸüne inanmak bir delilik belirtisi say?l?yordu, bugün ise geçmiÅŸin deÄŸiÅŸtirilemez olduÄŸuna inanmak...

It is impossible to read through the reports in the Communist Press without realizing that they are consciously aimed at a public ignorant of the facts and have no other purpose than to work up prejudice.

El ataque directo y consciente contra la honradez intelectual procede de los propios intelectuales.

It struck him as curious that you could create dead men but not living ones. Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in The present, now existed in The past, and when once The act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentical- ly, and upon The same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.

For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?

The controversy over freedom of speech and of the press is at bottom a controversy of the desirability, or otherwise, of telling lies. What is really at issue is the right to report contemporary events truthfully, or as truthfully as is consistent with the ignorance, bias and self-deception from which every observer necessarily suffers.

I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts.

things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse – hunger, hardship and disappointment being, the unalterable law of life.

El lenguaje político —y, aunque con variaciones, esto es cierto en el caso de todos los partidos, desde los conservadores hasta los anarquistas— está diseñado para que las mentiras suenen a verdad y los asesinatos parezcan algo respetable; para dar aspecto de solidez a lo que es puro humo.

The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or other, outside oneself, there was a 'real' world where 'real' things happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of anything, save though out own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was a lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun; to-day, to believe that the past is inalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic.

Now that you've seen what I'm really like, can you still bear to look at me?

It is difficult to be certain about anything except what you have seen with your own eyes, and consciously or unconsciously everyone writes as a partisan.

first four letters, and used to write them out

Beware of my partisanship, my mistakes of fact and the distortion inevitably caused by my having seen only one corner of events.

A few animals still felt faintly doubtful, but Squealer asked them shrewdly, 'Are you certain that this is not something that you have dreamed, comrades? Have you any record of such a resolution? Is it written down anywhere?' And since it was certainly true that nothing of the kind existed in writing, the animals were satisfied that they had been mistaken.

Talking to her, he realized how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant.

Si la libertad significa algo, es el derecho a decirles a los demás lo que no quieren oír.

In case I have not said this somewhere earlier in the book I will say it now: beware of my partisanship, my mistakes of fact and the distortion inevitably caused by my having seen only one corner of events. And beware of exactly the same things when you read any other book on this period of the Spanish war.

It is usually known that newspapers do not say the truth, but it is also known that they cannot tell whoppers.