Quotes About Propaganda

If one harbors anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, though in a sense known to be true, are inadmissable.

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side.

Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as the truth exists. […] The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, It never happened—well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five—well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs […]

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane.

The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.

Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.

The truth, it is felt, becomes untruth when your enemy utters it.

The average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies

The result of this is that so-called peace propaganda is just as dishonest and intellectually disgusting as war propaganda. Like war propaganda, it concentrates on putting forward a 'case', obscuring the opponent's point of view and avoiding awkward questions.

If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened —that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?...But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated...'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan,'controls the future:who controls the present controls the past.'...All that was needed was a series of victories over your own memory.

The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous.

Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'.

In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.

Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

The English language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts... if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in.

Who cares?' she said impatiently, 'it's always one bloody war after another, and one knows the news is all lies anyway.

Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in as in their rectified version

George Orwell

The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.