George Orwell Quotes About War

We have collected for you the TOP of George Orwell's best quotes about War! Here are collected all the quotes about War starting from the birthday of the Novelist – June 25, 1903! We hope you will be inspired to new achievements with our constantly updated collection of quotes. At the moment, this page contains 57 sayings of George Orwell about War. We will be happy if you share our collection of quotes with your friends on social networks!
  • Every war, when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

    George Orwell's review of the book "The Men I Killed" by Brigadier-General F. P. Crozier in "New Statesman and Nation", August 28, 1937.
  • The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. ... War is Peace.

    George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.431, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance, this new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.

  • The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule , between good and evil but between two evils. You can let the Nazis rule the world : that is evil; or you can overthrow them by war , which is also evil. There is no other choice before you, and whichever you choose you will not come out with clean hands.

    George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.175, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • And in the general hardening of outlook that set in ... practices which had been long abandoned ... -- imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations -- not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.

    George Orwell (2003). “1984”, Plume Books
  • In the nineteenth century some parts of the world were unexplored, but there was almost no restriction on travel.:; Up to 1914 you did not need a passport for any country except Russia.:; The European emigrant, if he could scrape together a few pounds for the passage, simply set sail for America or Australia, and when he got there no questions were asked.:; In the eighteenth century it had been quite normal and safe to travel in a country with which your own country was at war.

    George Orwell (1968). “The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: As I please, 1943-1945”
  • Men use up their lives in heart-breaking political struggles, or get themselves killed in civil wars, or tortured in the secret prisons of the Gestapo, not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another.

    George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: I have tried to tell the truth, 1943-1944”
  • You must have seen great changes since you were a young man," said Winston tentatively. The old man's pale blue eyes moved from the darts board to the bar, and from the bar to the door of the Gents ... "The beer was better," he said finally. "And cheaper! When I was a young man, mild beer - wallop we used to call it - was fourpence a pint. That was before the war, of course." "Which war was that?" said Winston. "It's all wars," said the old man vaguely. He took up his glass, and his shoulders straightened again. "'Ere's wishing you the very best of 'ealth!

  • Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.

    "The Sporting Spirit" (1945)
  • The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand.

    George Orwell (1976). “The Penguin complete novels of George Orwell”
  • The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.

  • War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.

    George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: Facing unpleasant facts, 1937-1939”
  • War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.

    George Orwell (2016). “Animal Farm”, p.16, Hamilton Books
  • Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.

    George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.135, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more of less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.

    George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.203, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

    1945 In the Observer, 8 Apr.
  • Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'.

    George Orwell (1998). “The complete works of George Orwell”
  • People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has a man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases? 'Natural' death, almost by defintion, means something slow, smelly and painful.

    George Orwell (2009). “Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays”, p.238, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • ...the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.

    George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.144, Arcturus Publishing
  • The organizing principal for any culture is War.

  • Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist.

    George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.416, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • The English are not happy unless they are miserable, the Irish are not at peace unless they are at war, and the Scots are not at home unless they are abroad.

  • Records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth.

    George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.31, Arcturus Publishing
  • The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

    Polemic May 1946 "Second Thoughts on James Burnham"
  • Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.

    The Lion and the Unicorn pt. 1, sec. 4 (1941) SeeWellington 7
  • ...the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.

    George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.415, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • International football is the continuation of war by other means.

  • War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent.

  • As soon as you think of fishing you think of things that don't belong to the modern world. The very idea of sitting all day under a willow tree beside a quiet pool - and being able to find a quiet pool to sit beside- belongs to a time before the war, before radio, before aeroplanes, before Hitler.

    George Orwell (1969). “Coming Up for Air”, p.93, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • The war is waged against its own subjects and its object is not the victory...but to keep the very structure of society intact.

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