Quotes About Authority

There would be many crimes and errors which it would be beyond his power to commit, simply because they were nameless and therefore unimaginable.

Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality.

Quite likely he would be in the cellars of the Ministry of Love within three days, but a cigarette end must not be wasted.

Quien controla el presente controla el pasado y quien controla el pasado controlará el futuro.

But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.

Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written record 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.

Public opinion is less tolerant than any system of law.

Animal Farm is not a book about how pigs—animals—when bestowed with power start to behave like men. It is a book about how men, when given power over other men, start to behave like pigs.

For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High.

how men, when given power over other men, start to behave like pigs.

From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.

El poder no es un medio, sino un fin en sí mismo. No se establece una dictadura para salvaguardar una revolución; se hace la revolución para establecer una dictadura.

Tutti gli animali sono uguali, ma alcuni sono più uguali degli altri. (All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others).

Bütün hayvanlar eÅŸittir ama baz?lar? daha eÅŸittir.

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.

They would have blown his brain to pieces before they could reclaim it. The heretical thought would be unpunished, unrepented, out of their reach for ever. They would have blown a hole in their own perfection. To die hating them, that was freedom.

Pân? nu devin comÈ™tienÈ›i, nu se vor r?zvr?ti È™i pân? nu se r?zvr?tesc, nu pot deveni conÈ™tienÈ›i" - 1984

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?

If human equality is to be for ever averted — if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently — then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.

Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down. The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be.

Il y a partout la même structure pyramidale, le même culte d'un chef semi-divin, le même système économique existant par et pour une guerre continuelle.

On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on the wrapping of a cigarette packet - everywhere. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed - no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.

Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed--no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.