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DAILY ORWELL 1984 READINGS

January 1

'Comrades!' cried the eager youthful voice,
'...All over OCEANIA this morning
there were irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations
when workers marched out of factories and offices
and paraded through the streets with banners
voicing their gratitude to BIG BROTHER
for the new, happy life which
his wise leadership has bestowed upon us'...
The phrase 'our new, happy life' recurred several times.
It had been a favorite of late
with the MINISTRY OF PLENTY. ~ p.61

January 2

The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary.
This was not illegal (nothing was illegal,
since there were no longer any laws),
but if detected it was reasonably certain that
it would be punished by death,
or at least by twenty-five years in a forced labour camp. ~ p.8

January 3

For weeks past he had been making ready for this moment,
and it had never crossed his mind
that anything would be needed excerpt courage.
The actual writing would be easy.
All he had to do was to transfer to paper
the interminable restless monologue
that had been running inside his head, literally for years. ~ pp.9-10

January 4

He did not know her name, but he knew that she worked in the FICTION DEPARTMENT...
She was a bold-looking girl, of about twenty-seven,
with thick dark hair, a freckled face and swift, athletic movements...
Winston had disliked her from the very first moment of seeing her...
He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones.
It was always the women, and above all the young ones,
who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party,
the swallowers of slogans,
the amateur spies and the nosers-out of unorthodoxy.
But this particular girl gave him the impression
of being more dangerous than most. ~ pp.11-12

January 5

Winston had seen O'Brien perhaps a dozen times in almost as many years.
He felt deeply drawn to him, not solely because he was intrigued by the contrast
between O'Brien's urbane manner and his prizefighter's physique.
Much more it was because of a secretly-held belief -
or perhaps not even belief, merely a hope -
that O'Brien's political orthodoxy was not perfect. ~ pp.12-13

January 6

Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER,
or whether he did not go on with it,
made no difference.
The THOUGHT POLICE would get him just the same.
He had committed - would still have committed,
even if he had never set pen to paper -
the essential crime that contained all others in itself.
THOUGHTCRIME, they called it. ~ p.21

January 7

The MINISTRY OF TRUTH,
which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education and the fine arts.
The MINISTRY OF PEACE, which concerned itself with war.
The MINISTRY OF LOVE, which maintained law and order.
And the MINISTRY OF PLENTY, which was responsible for economic affairs.
Their names, in NEWSPEAK:
MINITRUE, MINIPAX, MINILUV and MINIPLENTY. ~ p.6

January 8

'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future:
who controls the present, controls the past.'~ p.37

January 9

'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,'
O'Brien had said to him.
He knew what it meant, or thought he knew.
The place where there is no darkness
was the imagined future, which one would never see,
but which, by foreknowledge one could mystically share in. ~ p.107

January 10

He took up his pen and wrote:
I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY. ~ p.83

January 11

Throughout recorded time...
there have been three kinds of people in the world,
the HIGH, the MIDDLE and the LOW.
They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names,
and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another,
have varied from age to age;
but the essential structure of society has never altered.
Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes,
the same pattern has always reasserted itself,
just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium,
however far it is pushed one way or the other. ~ p.192

January 12

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. ~ p.200

January 13

To the future or to the past,
to a time when thought is free,
when men are different from one another
and do not live alone -
to a time when truth exists and
what is done cannot be undone:
From the age of uniformity,
from the age of solitude,
from the age of BIG BROTHER,
from the age of DOUBLETHINK
- greetings! ~ p.30

January 14

The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods,
but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.
They pretended, perhaps they even believed,
that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time,
and that just round the corner there lay a paradise
where human beings would be free and equal.
We are not like that.
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.
Power is not a means, it is an end.
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;
one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. ~ p.276

January 15

The primary aim of modern warfare
(in accordance with the principles of DOUBLETHINK,
this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized
by the directing brains of the INNER PARTY)
is to use up the products of the machine
without raising the general standard of living. ~ p.196

January 16

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:
today, to believe that the past is unalterable.
He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic.
But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him:
the horror was that he might also be wrong. ~ p.83

January 17

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. ~ p.201

January 18

Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure,
the same worship of a semi-divine leader,
the same economy existing
by and for continuous warfare. ~ p.205

January 19

The smallest thing could give you away.
A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself -
anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality,
of having something to hide.
In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face
(to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example)
was itself a punishable offence.
There was even a word for it in NEWSPEAK:
FACECRIME, it was called. ~ p.65

January 20

The three men sat in their corner
almost motionless, never speaking...
And then a voice from the TELESCREEN was singing:

Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we,
Under the spreading chestnut tree.

The three men never stirred.
But when Winston glanced again at Rutherford's ruinous face,
he saw that his eyes were full of tears. ~ p.80

January 21

The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars,
is merely an imposture.
It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals
whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another.
But though it is unreal it is not meaningless.
It eats up the surplus of consumable goods,
and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere
that a hierarchical society needs. ~ p.207

January 22

The new movements which appeared in the middle years of the century,
INGSOC in OCEANIA,
NEO-BOLSHEVISM in EURASIA,
DEATH-WORSHIP, as it is commonly called, in EASTASIA,
had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequlality. ~ p.211

January 23

Every year fewer and fewer words,
and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.
Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing THOUGHTCRIME.
It's merely a question of self-discipline, REALITY-CONTROL. ~ p.55

January 24

DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of INGSOC, since
the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception
while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. ~ p.223

January 25

The aim of the Party was
not merely to prevent men and women from forming loyalties
which it might not be able to control.
Its real, undeclared purpose was
to remove all pleasure from the sexual act. ~ p.68

January 26

In some ways she was far more acute than Winston,
and far less susceptible to Party propaganda.
Once when he happened in some connection
to mention the war against EURASIA,
she startled him by saying casually that
in her opinion the war was not happening.
The rocket bombs which fell daily on London
were probably fired by the Government of OCEANIA itself,
'just to keep the people frightened.'
This was an idea that had literally never occurred to him. ~ p.160

January 27

They remembered a million useless things,
a quarrel with a work-mate, a hunt for a lost bicycle pump,
the expression on a long-dead sister's face,
the swirls of dust on a windy morning seventy years ago:
but all the relevant facts were outside the range of their vision.
They were like the ant,
which can see small objects but not large ones. ~ pp.96-97

January 28

With the feeling that he was speaking to O'Brien,
and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote:

Freedom is the freedom to say that
TWO PLUS TWO MAKE FOUR.
If that is granted, all else follows. ~ p.84

January 29

If you kept the small rules,
you could break the big ones. ~ p.135

January 30

Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness. ~ p.56

January 31

Nothing exists except an endless present in which
the Party is always right. ~ p.162

February 1

In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully
on people incapable of understanding it.
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. ~ p.163

February 2

He paused, and for a moment assumed again
his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil:
'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?'
Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.
'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough.
Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that
he is obeying your will and not his own?' ~ p.279

February 3

It is precisely in the INNER PARTY that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest.
In his capacity as an administrator,
it is often necessary for a member of the INNER PARTY to know that
this or that item of war news is untruthful,
and he may often be aware that
the entire war is spurious and is either not happening
or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones:
but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of DOUBLETHINK. ~ p.200

February 4

In an intellectual way,
Syme was venomously orthodox. ~ p.52

February 5

'If you want a picture of the future,
imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.' ~ p.280

February 6

The women of the Party were all alike.
Chastity was as deeply ingrained in them as Party loyalty.
By careful early conditioning, by games and cold water,
by the rubbish that was dinned into them at school
and in the SPIES and the YOUTH LEAGUE,
by lectures, parades, songs, slogans and martial music,
the natural feeling had been driven out of them. ~ p.71

February 7

A Party member is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts.
Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are never plainly stated,
and could not be stated without laying bare the contradictions inherent in INGSOC.
If he is a person naturally orthodox (in NEWSPEAK a GOODTHINKER),
he will in all circumstances know, without taking thought,
what is the true belief or the desirable emotion. ~ p.220

February 8

CRIMESTOP means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct,
at the threshold of any dangerous thought.
It includes the power of not grasping analogies,
of failing to perceive logical errors,
of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to INGSOC,
and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought
which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.
CRIMESTOP, in short, means protective stupidity. ~ p.221

February 9

DOUBLETHINK means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs
in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. ~ p.223

February 10

But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century
all the main currents of political thought were authoritarian.
The earthly paradise had been discredited at exactly the moment
when it became realisable. ~ p.213

February 11

DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of INGSOC,
since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception
while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. ~ p.223

February 12

For it is only by reconciling the contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely.
In no other way could the ancient cycle be broken.
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. ~ p.225

February 13

Even the names of the four Ministries by which we are governed
exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts.
The MINISTRY OF PEACE concerns itself with WAR,
the MINISTRY OF TRUTH with LIES,
the MINISTRY OF LOVE with TORTURE, and
the MINISTRY OF PLENTY with STARVATION.
These contradictions are not accidental,
nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy:
they are deliberate exercises in DOUBLETHINK. ~ p.225

February 14

The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon.
And since the Party is in full control of all records,
it follows that the past is
whatever the Party chooses to make it. ~ p.222

February 15

To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them,
to forget any fact that has become inconvenient,
and then, when it becomes necessary again,
to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed,
to deny the existence of objective reality
and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies,
all this is indispensably necessary.
Even in using the word DOUBLETHINK
it is necessary to exercise DOUBLETHINK. ~ p.223

February 16

It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of DOUBLETHINK
are those who invented DOUBLETHINK
and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating.
In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening
are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. ~ p.224

February 17

Even the names of the four Ministries by which we are governed
exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts.
The MINISTRY OF PEACE concerns itself with WAR,
the MINISTRY OF TRUTH with LIES,
the MINISTRY OF LOVE with TORTURE, and
the MINISTRY OF PLENTY with STARVATION.
These contradictions are not accidental,
nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy:
they are deliberate exercises in DOUBLETHINK. ~ p.225

February 18

Even in using the word DOUBLETHINK it is necessary to exercise DOUBLETHINK.
For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality;
By a fresh act of DOUBLETHINK one erases this knowledge,
and so on indefinitely,
with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. ~ p.223

February 19

A Party member is required to have
not only the right opinions, but the right instincts.
Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are never plainly stated,
and could not be stated without laying bare the contradictions inherent in INGSOC.
If he is a person naturally orthodox (in NEWSPEAK a GOODTHINKER),
he will in all circumstances know, without taking thought,
what is the true belief and the desirable emotion. ~ p.220

February 20

Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that
BIG BROTHER is omnipotent and that
the Party is infallible. ~ p.221

February 21

The key-word here is BLACKWHITE.
Like so many NEWSPEAK words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings.
Applied to an opponent,
it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white,
in contradiction of the plain facts.
Applied to a Party member,
it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white
when Party discipline demands this. ~ p.221

February 22

Katherine was a tall, fair-haired girl, very straight, with splendid movements....
Very early in their married life he had decided -
though perhaps it was only that he knew her more intimately than he knew most people -
that she had without exception the most stupid, vulgar, empty mind that he had ever encountered.
She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan,
and there was no imbecility, absolutely none, that she was not capable of swallowing
if the Party handed it out to her. ~ p.69

February 23

In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening
are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is.
In general, the more intelligent, the less sane. ~ p.224

February 24

The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself.
The process should be automatic, instinctive.
CRIMESTOP, they called it in NEWSPEAK. ~ p.291

February 25

'We control life, Winston, at all levels.
You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged
by what we do and will turn against us.
But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable.' ~ p.282

February 26

Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible -
and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord.
That is the world that we are preparing Winston. ~ p.281

February 27

There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party.
There will be no love, except the love of BIG BROTHER.
There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. ~ p.280

February 28

Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version.
A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. ~ p.43

March 1

'Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this.
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. ~ p.275

March 2

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. ~ p.207

March 3

In the old days, he thought,
a man looked at a girl's body and saw that it was desirable,
and that was the end of the story.
But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays.
No emotion was pure,
because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. ~ p.133

March 4

All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers,
but they could not afford to encourage any illusion
that tended to impair military efficiency. ~ pp.205-6

March 5

The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of
bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organisers, publicity experts,
sociologists, teachers, journalists and professional politicians. ~ p.213

March 6

The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members,
and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal,
but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes.
It is precisely in the INNER PARTY that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. ~ p.200

March 7

The empirical method of thought on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded,
is opposed to the most fundamental principles of INGSOC.
And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used
for the diminution of human liberty. ~ p.201

March 8

The command of the old despotisms was "Thou shalt not."
The command of the totalitarians was "Thou shalt."
Our commmand is "Thou art." ~ p.267

March 9

'Don't worry, Winston, you are in my keeping.
For seven years I have watched over you. Now the turning-point has come.
I shall save you, I shall make you perfect.'
He was not sure whether it was O'Brien's voice; but it was the same voice that had said to him,
'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,'
in that other dream, seven years ago. ~ p.256

March 10

Like a leaden knell the words came back at him:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH ~ p.107

March 11

One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction,
Syme will be vaporized.
He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly.
The Party does not like such people.
One day he will disappear. ~ p.56

March 12

Syme had vanished. A morning came, and he was missing from work:
a few thoughtless people commented on his absence. On the next day nobody mentioned him.
On the third day, Winston went into the vestibule of the RECORDS DEPARTMENT
to look at the notice board.
One of the notices carried a printed list of the members to the Chess Committee,
of whom Syme had been one.
It looked almost exactly as if had looked before - nothing had been crossed out --
but it was one name shorter. It was enough.
Syme had ceased to exist: he had never existed. ~ p.154

March 13

At the apex of the pyramid comes BIG BROTHER.
BIG BROTHER is infallible and all-powerful.
Every success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery,
all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue,
are held to issue directly from his leadership and inspiration.
Nobody has ever seen BIG BROTHER.
He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the TELESCREEN. ~ p.216

March 14

He tried with a little more success than before to summon up the image of O'Brien.
'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,' O'Brien had said to him.
He knew what it meant, or thought he knew. ~ p.107

March 15

If you kept the small rules,
you could break the big ones. ~ p.135

March 16

OCEANIA has no capital, and its titular head is a person whose whereabouts nobody knows.
Except that English is its chief lingua franca and NEWSPEAK its official language,
it is not centralised in any way.
Its rulers are not held together by blood-ties
but by adherence to a common doctrine. ~ p.217

March 17

A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the THOUGHT POLICE.
Even when he is alone he can never be sure that he is alone...
Not only any actual misdemeanor, but any eccentricity, however small,
any change of habits, any nervous mannerism that could possibly be the symptom of an inner struggle,
is certain to be detected. ~ p.219

March 18

From the proletarians nothing is to be feared.
Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and
from century to century, working, breeding and dying,
not only without any impulse to rebel,
but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is. ~ p.219

March 19

It is in the ranks of the Party, and above all of the INNER PARTY,
that the true war enthusiasm is found.
World-conquest is believed in most firmly by those who know it to be impossible.
This peculiar linking-together of opposites -
knowledge with ignorance, cynicism with fanaticism -
is one of the chief distinguishing marks of Oceanic society.
The official ideology abounds with contradictions
even where there is no practical reason for them. ~ p.225

March 20

He fell asleep murmuring 'Sanity is not statistical,'
with the feeling that this remark contained in it a profound wisdom. ~ p.227

March 21

He told Julia the story of his mother's disappearance...
He did not suppose, from what he could remember of her,
that she had been an unusual woman, still less an intelligent one;
and yet she had possessed a kind of nobility, a kind of purity,
simply because the standards that she obeyed were private ones.
Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered from outside. ~ p.171

March 22

'We control life, Winston, at all levels...
Men are infinitely malleable.
Or perhaps you have returned to your old idea
that the proletarians or the slaves will arise and overthrow us.
Put it out of your mind.
They are helpless, like the animals.
Humanity is the Party.
The others are outside - irrelevant.' ~ p.282

March 23

The scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor,
studying with extraordinary minuteness
the meaning of facial expressions, gestures and tones of voice,
and testing the truth-producing effects
of drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis and physical torture;
or he is chemist, physicist or biologist
concerned only with such branches of his special subject
as are relevant to the taking of life. ~ pp.201-202

March 24

The clever thing was to break the rules
and stay alive all the same. ~ p.138

March 25

Actually the three philosophies are barely distinguishable,
and the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all.
Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure,
the same worship of a semi-divine leader,
the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare. ~ p.205

March 26

'They can't get inside you,' she had said.
But they could get inside you
'What happens to you here is for ever,' O'Brien had said.
That was a true word. ~ p.303

March 27

'It isn't very important about the top hats,' said Winston patiently.
'The point is, these capitalists -
they and a few lawyers and priests and so forth who lived on them -
were the lords of the earth. Everything existed for their benefit...' ~ pp.93-94

March 28

The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be.
They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death
in numbers large enough to be inconvenient...
but once that minimum is achieved,
they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose. ~ p.207

March 29

Nothing is efficient in Oceania
except the THOUGHT POLICE. ~ p.206

March 30

The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects,
and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory,
but to keep the structure of society intact. ~ p.207

March 31

The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading.
It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist....
The effect would be much the same if the three SUPER-STATES,
instead of fighting one another,
should agree to live in perpetual peace,
each inviolate within its own boundaries. ~ pp.207-208

April 1

It was a bright cold day in April,
and the clocks were striking thirteen. ~ p.3

April 2

The effect would be much the same if the three SUPER-STATES,
instead of fighting one another,
should agree to live in perpetual peace,
each inviolate within its own boundaries.
For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe,
freed forever from the sobering influence of external danger.
A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war.
This - although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense -
is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE. ~ p.208

April 3

In the end he succeeded in forcing her memory back
until she did dimly recall that
at one time EASTASIA and not EURASIA had been the enemy.
But the issue still struck her as unimportant.
'Who cares?' she said impatiently.
'It's always one bloody war after another,
and one knows the news is all lies anyway.' ~ p.161

April 4

But in any case an elaborate mental training, undergone in childhood...
makes him unwilling and unable
to think too deeply on any subject whatever. ~ p.220

April 5

If he is a person naturally orthodox (in NEWSPEAK a GOODTHINKER),
he will in all circumstances, know without taking thought,
what is the true belief or the desirable emotion. ~ p220

April 6

The first and simplest stage in the discipline,
which can be taught even to young children,
is called, in NEWSPEAK, CRIMESTOP.
CRIMESTOP means the faculty of stopping short,
as though by instinct,
at the threshold of any dangerous thought. ~ p.220

April 7

CRIMESTOP...includes the power of not grasping analogies ~ p.220

April 8

CRIMESTOP...includes the power of failing to perceive logical errors. ~ p.220

April 9

CRIMESTOP...includes the power of misunderstanding the simplest arguments
if they are inimical to INGSOC. ~ p.220-221

April 10

CRIMESTOP...includes the power of being bored or repelled by any train of thought
which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. ~ p.221

April 11

CRIMESTOP, in short, means protective stupidity.
But stupidity is not enough. ~ p.221

April 12

Orthodoxy in the full sense
demands a control over one's own mental processes
as complete as that of a contortionist over his body. ~ p.221

April 13

Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief
that BIG BROTHER is omnipotent
and that the Party is infallible. ~ p.221

April 14

But since in reality BIG BROTHER is not omnipotent
and the Party is not infallible,
there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment
flexibility in the treatment of facts. ~ p.221

April 15

The key-word here is BLACKWHITE.
Like so many NEWSPEAK Words,
this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. ~ p.221

April 16

BLACKWHITE...applied to an opponent...
means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white,
in contradiction of the plain facts. ~ p.221

April 17

BLACKWHITE...applied to a Party member...
means a loyal willingness to say that black is white
when Party discipline demands this. ~ p.221

April 18

BLACKWHITE...means also the ability to believe that black is white,
and more, to know that black is white,
and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. ~ p.221

April 19

BLACKWHITE...demands a continuous alteration of the past,
made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest,
and which is known in NEWSPEAK as DOUBLETHINK. ~ p.221

April 20

DOUBLETHINK means the power
of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously,
and accepting both of them. ~ p.223

April 21

The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered;
he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality;
but by the exercise of DOUBLETHINK
he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. ~ p.223

April 22

The process [of DOUBLETHINK] has to be conscious,
or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision,
but also has to be unconscious,
or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity or guilt. ~ p.223

April 23

DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of INGSOC,
since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception
while retaining firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. ~ p.223

April 24

DOUBLETHINK...to tell deliberate lies
while genuinely believing in them. ~ p.223

April 25

DOUBLETHINK...to forget any fact that has become inconvenient,
and then, when it becomes necessary again,
to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed. ~ p.223

April 26

DOUBLETHINK...to deny the existence of objective reality
and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies -
all this is indispensably necessary. ~ p.223

April 27

Even in using the word DOUBLETHINK it is necessary to exercise DOUBLETHINK.
For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality;
by a fresh act of DOUBLETHINK one erases this knowledge;
and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. ~ p.223

April 28

Ultimately it is by means of DOUBLETHINK that the Party has been able -
and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years -
to arrest the course of history. ~ p.223

April 29

But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past
is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. ~ p.221

April 30

It is not merely that speeches, statistics and records of every kind
must be constantly brought up to date
in order to show that the predictions of the Party were in all cases right.
It is also that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted.
For to change one's mind, or even one's policy, is a confession of weakness. ~ pp.221-222

May 1

It was one of those pictures which are so contrived
that the eyes follow you about when you move.
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran. ~ p.3

May 2

The family could not actually be abolished,
and, indeed people were encouraged to be fond of their children in almost the old-fashioned way.
The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against their parents
and taught to spy on them and report their deviations. ~ p.140

May 3

The family had become in effect an extension of the THOUGHT POLICE.
It was a device by means of which
everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately. ~ p. 140

May 4

Suddenly they were both leaping round him, shouting 'Traitor!' and 'THOUGHT-CRIMINAL!',
the little girl imitating her brother in every movement.
It was somehow slightly frightening,
like the gamboling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters. ~ p.25

May 5

It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.
And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which the Times did not carry a paragraph
describing how some eavesdropping little sneak - 'child hero' was the phrase generally used -
had overheard some compromising remark
and denounced his parents to the THOUGHT POLICE. ~ pp.26-27

May 6

Nearly all children nowadays were horrible.
What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies
they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages,
and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever
to rebel against the discipline of the Party. ~ p.26

May 7

The aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and women from forming loyalties
which it might not be able to control.
Its real, undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act.~ p.68

May 8

The only recognised purpose of marriage
was to beget children for the service of the Party. ~ pp.68-69

May 9

His voice had grown almost dreamy.
The exaltation, the lunatic enthusiasm, was still in his face.
He is not pretending, thought Winston;
he is not a hypocrite; he believes every word he says. ~ p.268

May 10

'Does BIG BROTHER exist?'
'Of course he exists. The Party exists.
BIG BROTHER is the embodiment of the Party.' ~ pp.271-72

May 11

The black-moustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner.
There was one on the house-front immediately opposite.
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said,
while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own. ~ p.4

May 12

BIG BROTHER is the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world.
His function is to act as a focusing point for love, fear and reverence,
emotions which are more easily felt towards an individual
than towards an organization. ~ p.117

May 13

In the Party histories, of course,
BIG BROTHER figured as the leader and guardian of the Revolution
since its very earliest days. ~ p.38

May 14

Nothing is efficient in Oceania
except the THOUGHT POLICE. ~ p.206

May 15

In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs,
hovered for an instant like a bluebottle,
and darted away again with a curving flight.
It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows.
The patrols did not matter, however.
Only the THOUGHT POLICE mattered. ~ p.4

May 16

THOUGHTCRIME was not a thing that could be concealed forever.
You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years,
but sooner or later they were bound to get you. ~ p.21

May 17

'If there is hope,' wrote Winston, 'it lies in THE PROLES.'
If there was hope, it must lie in THE PROLES,
because only there in those swarming disregarded masses,
85 per cent of the population of Oceania,
could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. ~ p.72

May 18

In reality very little was known about THE PROLES. It was not necessary to know much.
So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance.
Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina,
they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them,
a sort of ancestral pattern. ~ p.74

May 19

They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve,
they passed through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire,
they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty,
they died, for the most part, at sixty.
Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours,
films, football, beer, and above all, gambling,
filled up the horizon of their minds.
To keep them in control was not difficult. ~ p.74

May 20

A few agents of the THOUGHT POLICE moved always among them, spreading false rumours
and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous;
but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. ~ p.74

May 21

Newspapers and history books were, of course, always coloured and biased,
but falsification of the kind that is practised today would have been impossible. ~ p.206

May 22

War was a sure safeguard of sanity,
and so far as the ruling classes were concerned, the most important of all safeguards. ~ p.206

May 23

When war is continuous there is no such thing as technical necessity.
Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded. ~ p. 206

May 24

Every new political theory, by whatever name it called itself,
led back to hierarchy and regimentation. ~ p.213

May 25

A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the THOUGHT POLICE.
Even when he is alone he can never be sure that he is alone.
Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in bed,
he can be inspected without warning and without knowing that he is being inspected.
Nothing that he does is indifferent. ~ p.219

May 26

From the proletarians nothing is to be feared.
Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century,
working, breeding, and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel,
but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is. ~ p.219

May 27

'If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in THE PROLES.' ~ p.72

May 28

We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us:
so long as he resists us we never destroy him.
We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. ~ p.267

May 29

You must love BIG BROTHER.
It is not enough to obey him: you must love him. ~ p.295

May 30

How often, or on what system,
the THOUGHT POLICE plugged in on any individual wire
was guesswork. ~ p.5

May 31

He gazed up at the enormous face.
Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache.
O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast!
Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose.
But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished.
He had won the victory over himself. He loved BIG BROTHER. ~ p.311

June 1

If, for example, EURASIA or EASTASIA (whichever it may be) is the enemy today,
then that country must always have been the enemy.
And if the facts say otherwise, then the facts must be altered.
Thus history is continuously rewritten. ~ p.222

June 2

The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered;
he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality;
but by the exercise of DOUBLETHINK he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. ~ p.223

June 3

DOUBLETHINK...has to be unconscious,
or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. ~ p.223

June 4

It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of DOUBLETHINK
are those who invented DOUBLETHINK
and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. ~ p.224

June 5

In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening
are those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. ~ p.224

June 6

In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion:
the more intelligent, the less sane. ~ p.224

June 7

If human equality is to be fore 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. ~ p.225

June 8

For it is only by reconciling contradictions
that power can be retained indefinitely. ~ p.225

June 9

If human equality is to be fore 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. ~ p.225

June 10

Where there is equality there can be sanity. ~ p.229

June 11

The birds sang, the Proles sang,
the Party did not sing. ~ p.230

June 12

'How does one man assert his power over another Winston'?
Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.
Obedience is not enough.
Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure
that he is obeying your will and not his own? ~ p.279

June 13

Power is in tearing human minds to pieces
and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ~p.279

June 14

A world of fear and treachery and torment,
a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. ~ p.279

June 15

Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. ~ p.279

June 16

The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice.
Ours is founded upon hatred. ~ p.279

June 17

In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement.
Everything else we shall destroy - everything. ~ p.279

June 18

When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science.
There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness.
There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. ~ p.280

June 19

There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party.
There will be no love, except the love of BIG BROTHER. ~ p.280

June 20

SLAVERY IS FREEDOM.
Alone - free - the human being is doomed to die,
which is the greatest of all failures.
But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity,
if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party,
then he is all-powerful and immortal. ~ p.277

June 21

'We are different from the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing.
All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods.
But they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.
They pretended, perhaps they even believed,
that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time,
and that just round the corner there lay a paradise
where human beings would be free and equal.
We are not like that. ~ pp. 275-276

June 22

'That was forty,' said O'Brien.
'You can see that the numbers on this dial run up to a hundred.
Will you please remember, throughout our conversation, that I have it in my power
to inflict pain on you at any moment and to whatever degree I choose.' ~ p.257

June 23

If one is to rule, and to continue ruling,
one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality.
For the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility
with the power to learn from past mistakes. ~ p.224

June 24

'The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day,
is not power over things, but over men.' ~ p.279

June 25

'Does BIG BROTHER exist?'
Of course he exists. The Party exists.
BIG BROTHER is the embodiment of the Party.' ~ pp.271-272

June 26

'There are three stages in your re-integration, said O'Brien.
'There is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance.' ~ p.273

June 27

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. ~ p.201

June 28

Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the THOUGHT POLICE. ~ p.206

June 29

The official ideology abounds with contradictions
even where there is no practical reason for them. ~ p.225

June 30

They are aware that a change of overlordship
means simply that they will be doing the same work as before for new masters
who treat them in the same manner as the old ones. ~ p.224

July 1

The purpose of NEWSPEAK was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view
and mental habits proper to the devotees of INGSOC,
but to make all other modes of thought impossible. ~ p.312

July 2

Down in the street the wind flapped the torn poster to and fro,
and the word INGSOC fitfully appeared and vanished.
INGSOC. The sacred principles of INGSOC.
NEWSPEAK, DOUBLETHINK, the mutability of the past.
He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom,
lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster.
He was alone. ~ p.28

July 3

His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. ~ p.37

July 4

His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of DOUBLETHINK...
To know and not to know,
to be conscious of complete truthfulness
while telling carefully-constructed lies. ~ p.37

July 5

His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of DOUBLETHINK...
to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out,
knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them. ~ p.37

July 6

His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of DOUBLETHINK...
to use logic against logic. ~ p.37

July 7

His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of DOUBLETHINK...
to repudiate morality while laying claim to it. ~ p.37

July 8

His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of DOUBLETHINK...
to believe that democracy was impossible
and that the Party was the guardian of democracy. ~ p.37

July 9

His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of DOUBLETHINK...
to forget whatever it was necessary to forget,
then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed,
and then promptly to forget it again. ~ p.37

July 10

His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of DOUBLETHINK...
and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.
That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness,
and then, once again, to become unconscious
of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. ~ pp.37-38

July 11

To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free,
when men are different from one another and do not live alone -
to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone:
From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude,
from the age of BIG BROTHER, from the age of DOUBLETHINK
- greetings! ~ p.30

July 12

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.' ~ p.37

July 13

Even in using the word DOUBLETHINK it is necessary to exercise DOUBLETHINK.
For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality;
by a fresh act of DOUBLETHINK one erases this knowledge,
and so on indefinitely,
with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. ~ p.223

July 14

Syme, too - in some more complex way, involving DOUBLETHINK, Syme swallowed it.
Was he, then, ALONE in the possession of a memory? ~ p.62

July 15

Simultaneously, true to the Principles of DOUBLETHINK,
the Party taught that THE PROLES were natural inferiors
who must be kept in subjection, like animals,
by the application of a few simple rules.
In reality very little was known about THE PROLES. ~ p.74

July 16

It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of DOUBLETHINK
are those who invented DOUBLETHINK and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating.
In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening
are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. ~ p.224

July 17

The primary aim of modern warfare
(in accordance with the principles of DOUBLETHINK,
this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized
by the directing brains of the INNER PARTY)
is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. ~ p.196

July 18

In his capacity as an administrator,
it is often necessary for a member of the INNER PARTY to know
that this or that item of war news is untruthful,
and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious
and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones:
but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of DOUBLETHINK. ~ p.200

July 19

At all time the Party is in possession of absolute truth,
and clearly the absolute can never be different than it is now. ~ p.222

July 20

DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of INGSOC,
since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception
while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. ~ p.223

July 21

DOUBLETHINK means the power of
holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously,
and accepting both of them. ~ p.223

July 22

The MINISTRY OF PEACE concerns itself with WAR,
the MINISTRY OF TRUTH with LIES,
the MINISTRY OF LOVE with TORTURE and
the MINISTRY OF PLENTY with STARVATION.
These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy;
they are deliberate exercises in DOUBLETHINK.
For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely. ~ p.225

July 23

But in any case an elaborate mental training, undergone in childhood
and grouping itself round the NEWSPEAK words
CRIMESTOP, BLACKWHITE, and DOUBLETHINK,
makes him unwilling and unable
to think too deeply on any subject whatever. ~ p.220

July 24

The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered;
he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality;
but by the exercise of DOUBLETHINK
he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. ~ p.223

July 25

It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of DOUBLETHINK
are those who invented DOUBLETHINK
and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating.
In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening
are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. ~ p.224

July 26

Even the names of the four Ministries by which we are governed
exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts.
The MINISTRY OF PEACE concerns itself with WAR,
the MINISTRY OF TRUTH with LIES,
the MINISTRY OF LOVE with TORTURE, and
the MINISTRY OF PLENTY with STARVATION.
These contradictions are not accidental,
nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy:
they are deliberate exercises in DOUBLETHINK. p.225

July 27

These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy;
they are deliberate exercises in DOUBLETHINK.
For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely.
In no other way could the ancient cycle be broken. ~ p.225

July 28

He stepped across the room.
There was a MEMORY HOLE hole in the opposite wall. O'Brien lifted the grating.
Unseen, the frail slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm air;
it was vanishing in a flash of flame.
O'Brien turned away from the wall.
'Ashes,' he said. 'Not even identifiable ashes. Dust.
It does not exist. It never existed'.
'But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory.
I remember it. You remember it.'
'I do not remember it,' said O'Brien.
Winston's heart sank. That was DOUBLETHINK. ~ p. 259

July 29

When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse,
we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun
and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away.
But what of it?
Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy?
The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them.
Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that?
Have you forgotten DOUBLETHINK?' - p.278

July 30

'From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude,
from the age of BIG BROTHER,
from the age of DOUBLETHINK
- greetings!' ~ p.30

July 31

His mind hovered for a moment round the doubtful date on the page,
and then fetched up with a bump against the NEWSPEAK word DOUBLETHINK. ~ p.9

August 1

I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY. ~ p. 83

August 2

The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance,
but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life,
imposed by the dead upon the living. ~ p.218

August 3

The problem, that is to say, is educational.
It is a problem of continuously molding the consciousness
both of the directing group
and of the larger executive group that lies immediately below it. ~ p.216

August 4

Its rulers are not held together by blood-ties
but by adherence to a common doctrine. ~ p.217

August 5

All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterise our time
are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party
and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived. ~ p.219

August 6

But in any case an elaborate mental training,
undergone in childhood and grouping itself round
the NEWSPEAK words CRIMESTOP, BLACKWHITE, and DOUBLETHINK,
makes him unwilling and unable to think too deeply on any subject whatever. ~ p.220

August 7

But stupidity is not enough.
On the contrary, orthodoxy in the full sense
demands a control over one's own mental processes
as complete as that of a contortionist over his body. ~ p.220

August 8

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. ~ p.200

August 9

The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members,
and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war,
is now almost universal,
but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. ~ p.200

August 10

The citizen of OCEANIA
is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies,
but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense. ~ p. 205

August 11

...The speculations which might possibly induce a sceptical or rebellious attitude
are killed in advance by his early acquired inner discipline.
The first and simplest stage in the discipline,
which can be taught even to young children,
is called, in NEWSPEAK, CRIMESTOP. ~ p.220

August 12

CRIMESTOP means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct,
at the threshold of any dangerous thought. ~ p.220

August 13

CRIMESTOP...includes the power of not grasping analogies. ~ p.220

August 14

CRIMESTOP...includes the power of not grasping analogies,
of failing to perceive logical errors. ~ p.220

August 15

CRIMESTOP means...misunderstanding the simplest arguments
if they are inimical to INGSOC. ~ p.220-221

August 16

CRIMESTOP means being bored or repelled by any train of thought
which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. ~ p.221

August 17

CRIMESTOP, in short, means protective stupidity. ~ p.221

August 18

CRIMESTOP, in short, means protective stupidity.
But stupidity is not enough.
On the contrary, orthodoxy in the full sense demands
a control over one's own mental processes
as complete as that of a contortionist over his body. ~ p.221

August 19

...an elaborate mental training, undergone in childhood
and grouping itself round the NEWSPEAK words
CRIMESTOP, BLACKWHITE, and DOUBLETHINK,
makes him unwilling and unable to think too deeply on any subject whatever. ~ p.220

August 20

Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief
that BIG BROTHER is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible. ~ p.221

August 21

Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief
that BIG BROTHER is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible.
But since in reality BIG BROTHER is not omnipotent and the party is not infallible,
there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts.
The keyword here is BLACKWHITE. ~ p.221

August 22

The key-word here is BLACKWHITE...
Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white,
in contradiction of the plain facts. ~ p.221

August 23

The key-word here is BLACKWHITE...
Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white
when Party discipline demands this. ~ p.221

August 24

But [BLACKWHITE] means also the ability to BELIEVE that black is white,
and more, to KNOW that black is white,
and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. ~ p.221

August 25

[BLACKWHITE] demands a continuous alteration of the past,
made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest
and which is known in NEWSPEAK as DOUBLETHINK. ~ p.221

August 26

The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons,
one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. ~ p.221

August 27

The subsidiary reason is that the Party member, like the proletarian,
tolerates present-day conditions
partly because he has no standards of comparison. ~ p.221

August 28

He must be cut off from the past,
just as he must be cut off from foreign countries,
because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his ancestors
and that the average level of material comfort is constantly rising. ~ p.221

August 29

But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past
is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. ~ p.221

August 30

...Speeches, statistics and records of every kind
must be constantly brought up to date in order to show
that the predictions of the Party were in all cases right. ~ pp.221-2

August 31

...No change in doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted. ~ p.222

September 1

For to change one's mind, or even one's policy,
is a confession of weakness. ~ p.222

September 2

It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of DOUBLETHINK
are those who invented DOUBLETHINK
and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. ~ p.224

September 3

In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening
are those who are furtherest from seeing the world as it is. ~ p.224

September 4

If one is to rule, and to continue ruling,
one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality.
For the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility
with the Power to learn from past mistakes. ~ p.224

September 5

It does not matter whether the war is actually happening...
All that is needed is that a state of war should exist...
an atmosphere of war is now almost universal,
but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. ~ p.200

September 6

O'Brien, however, had continued forward in the same movement,
laying a friendly hand for a moment on Winston's arm,
so that the two of them were walking side by side.
He began speaking with the peculiar grave courtesy
that differentiated him from the majority of INNER PARTY members. ~ p.164

September 7

It was only on very rare occasions that one saw inside the dwelling-places of the INNER PARTY,
or even penetrated into the quarter of the town where they lived. ~ p.175

September 8

The primary aim of modern warfare
(in accordance with the principles of DOUBLETHINK,
this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized
by the directing brains of the INNER PARTY)
is to use up the products of the machine
without raising the general standard of living. ~ p.196

September 9

It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship,
because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges
and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another.
By the standards of the early twentieth century,
even a member of the INNER PARTY lives an austere, laborious kind of life. ~ p.199

September 10

It is precisely in the INNER PARTY
that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. ~ p.200

September 11

In his capacity as an administrator,
it is often necessary for a member of the INNER PARTY
to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful,
and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious
and is either not happening
or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones:
but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of DOUBLETHINK. ~ p.200

September 12

...No INNER PARTY member wavers for an instant
in his mystical belief that the war is real,
and that it is bound to end victoriously,
with OCEANIA the undisputed master of the entire world. ~ pp.200-201

September 13

All members of the INNER PARTY
believe in this coming conquest as an article of faith. ~ p.201

September 14

We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us:
so long as he resists us we never destroy him.
We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. ~ p.267

September 15

The command of the old despotisms was "Thou shalt not".
The command of the totalitarians was "Thou shalt".
Our command is "THOU ART".
No one whom we bring to this place ever stands out against us.
Everyone is washed clean. ~ p.267-268

September 16

It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world,
however secret and powerless it may be. ~ p.267

September 17

Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation. ~ p.267

September 18

No one we bring to this place ever stands out against us.
Everyone is washed clean. ~ pp.267-8

September 19

He is not pretending, thought Winston;
he is not a hypocrite;
he believes every word he says. ~ p.268

September 20

'The truth, please, Winston. YOUR truth. ~ p.258

September 21

O'Brien was looking down at him speculatively.
More than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child.
'There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,' he said.
'Repeat it, if you please.'
'"Who controls the past controls the future:
who controls the present controls the past,"'
repeated Winston obediently. ~ p.26

September 22

You are here because you have failed in humility, in self-discipline.
You would not make the act of submission which is the price of sanity. ~ p.261

September 23

Whatever the Party holds to be truth, IS truth. ~ p.261

September 24

But I tell you Winston, that reality is not external.
Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.
Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes:
only in the mind of the Party,
which is collective and immortal. ~ p.261

September 25

Whatever the Party holds to be truth, IS truth. ~ p.261

September 26

It is impossible to see reality
except by looking through the eyes of the Party. ~ p.261

September 27

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. ~ p.275

September 28

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.
Power is not a means, it is an end. ~ p.276

September 29

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;
one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. ~ p.276

September 30

Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?
It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined.
A world of fear and treachery and torment,
a world of trampling and being trampled upon,
a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless
as it refines itself. ~ p.279

October 1

The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day,
is not power over things, but over men. ~ p.279

October 2

He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil:
'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?'
Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said. ~ p.279

October 3

Obedience is not enough.
Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure
that he is obeying your will and not his own? ~ p.279

October 4

The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city,
where the possession of a lump of horseflesh
makes the difference between wealth and poverty. ~ p.199

October 5

It is deliberate policy to keep the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship,
because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges
and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another. ~ p.199

October 6

The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice.
Ours is founded upon hatred. ~ p.279

October 7

In practice the needs of the population are always underestimated,
with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life;
but this is looked on as an advantage. ~ p.199

October 8

The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice.
Ours is founded upon hatred. ~ p.279

October 9

In our world there will be no emotions
except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement.
Everything else we shall destroy - everything. ~ p.279

October 10

Already we are breaking down the habits of thought
which have survived from before the Revolution. ~ p.279-80

October 11

There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party.
There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. ~ p.280

October 12

When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science.
There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness.
There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life.
All competing pleasures will be destroyed. ~ p.280

October 13

But always - do not forget this, Winston -
always there will be the intoxication of power,
constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. ~ p.280

October 14

The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant:
the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. ~ p.281

October 15

Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy,
screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible -
and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself,
crawling to our feet of his own accord.
That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. ~ p.281

October 16

Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.' ~ p.56

October 17

'If you want a picture of the future,
imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.' ~ p.280

October 18

The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant:
the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. ~ p.281

October 19

'We control life, Winston, at all its levels.
You are imagining that there is something called human nature
which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us.
But we create human nature.
Men are infinitely malleable. ~ p.282

October 20

'Humanity is the Party.
The others are outside - irrelevant. ~ p.281

October 21

'If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man.
Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors.
Do you understand that you are ALONE? ~ p.283

October 22

'You did it!' sobbed Winston.
'You reduced me to this state.'
'No, Winston, you reduced yourself to it.
This is what you accepted when you set yourself up against the Party. ~ p.286

October 23

How easy it all was!
Only surrender, and everything else followed. ~ p.290

October 24

The mind should develop a blind spot
whenever a dangerous thought presented itself.
The process should be automatic, instinctive.
CRIMESTOP, they called it in NEWSPEAK. ~ p.291

October 25

For the first time he perceived
that if you want to keep a secret
you must also hide it from yourself. ~ p.294

October 26

And all the while he must keep his hatred locked up inside him
like a ball of matter which was part of himself
and yet unconnected with the rest of him, a kind of cyst. ~ p.294

October 27

You must love BIG BROTHER.
It is not enough to obey him: you must love him. ~ p.295

October 28

'They can't get inside you,' she had said.
But they could get inside you.
'What happens to you here is forever,' O'Brien had said. ~ p.303

October 29

'You don't give a damn what they suffer.
All you care about is yourself.'
All you care about is yourself,' he echoed.~ p.305

October 30

Something changed in the music that trickled from the telescreen.
A cracked and jeering note, a yellow note, came into it.
And then - perhaps it was not happening,
perhaps it was only a memory taking on the semblance of sound -
a voice was singing:

'Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me --'

The tears welled up in his eyes.
A passing waiter noticed that his glass was empty
and came back with the gin bottle. ~ p.307

October 31

He gazed up at the enormous face.
Forty years it had taken him to learn
what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache.
O cruel, needless misunderstanding!
O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast!
Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose.
But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished.
He had won the victory over himself.
He loved BIG BROTHER. ~ p.311

November 1

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,
the caption beneath it ran. ~ p.3

November 2

The voice came from an oblong metal plaque
like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall.
Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat,
though the words were still distinguishable.
The instrument (the TELESCREEN, it was called) could be dimmed,
but there was no way of shutting it off completely. ~ pp.3-4

November 3

The TELESCREEN received and transmitted simultaneously.
Any sound that Winston made,
above the level of a very low whisper,
would be picked up by it,
moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision
which the metal plaque commanded,
he could be seen as well as heard. ~ p.4

November 4

There was of course no way of knowing
whether you were being watched at any given moment.
How often, or on what system,
the THOUGHT POLICE plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork.
It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.
But at any rate they could plug in your wire
whenever they wanted to. ~ pp.4-5

November 5

You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct -
in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard,
and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. ~ p.5

November 6

Winston turned round abruptly.
He had set his features into the expression of quiet optimism
which it was advisable to wear when facing the TELESCREEN. ~ p.6

November 7

For some reason the TELESCREEN in the living-room was in an unusual position.
Instead of being placed, as was normal, in the end wall,
where it could command the whole room,
it was in the longer wall, opposite the window.
To one side of it there was a shallow alcove
in which Winston was now sitting,
and which, when the flats were built,
had probably been intended to hold bookshelves.
By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well back,
Winston was able to remain outside the range of the TELESCREEN,
so far as sight went.
He could be heard, of course,
but so long as he stayed in his present position
he could not be seen. ~ p.7

November 8

Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all,
but on the contrary, against BIG BROTHER, the Party and the THOUGHT POLICE,
and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen,
sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies. ~ pp.16-17

November 9

Parsons was Winston's fellow-employee at the MINISTRY OF TRUTH.
He was a fattish but active man of paralysing stupidity,
a mass of imbecile enthusiasms -
one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom,
more even than on the THOUGHT POLICE,
the stability of the Party depended. ~ p.24

November 10

But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the MINISTRY OF PLENTY'S figures,
it was not even forgery.
It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another.
Most of the material that you were dealing with
had no connection with anything in the real world,
not even the kind of connection
that is contained in a direct lie. ~ p.43

November 11

Statistics were just as much a fantasy
in their original version as in their rectified version.
A great deal of the time you were expected
to make them up out of your head. ~ p.43

November 12

Syme was venomously orthodox. ~ p.52

November 13

'Don't you see that the whole aim of NEWSPEAK
is to narrow the range of thought?
In the end we shall make THOUGHTCRIME literally impossible,
because there will be no words in which to express it. ~ p.55

November 14

Always in your stomach and in your skin
there was a sort of protest,
a feeling that you had been cheated
of something that you had a right to. ~ p.62

November 15

He looked round the canteen again.
Nearly everyone was ugly,
and would still have been ugly
even if dressed otherwise than in the uniform blue overalls. ~ p.63

November 16

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. ~ p.83

November 17

He picked up the children's history book and looked at
the portrait of BIG BROTHER which formed its frontispiece.
The hypnotic eyes gazed into his own.
It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you -
something that penetrated inside your skull,
battering against your brain,
frightening you out of your beliefs,
persuading you, almost,
to deny the evidence of your senses. ~ p.83

November 18

The heresy of heresies was common sense. ~ pp.83-84

November 19

...To do anything that suggested a taste for solitude,
even to go for a walk by yourself,
was always slightly dangerous.
There was a word for it in NEWSPEAK:
OWNLIFE, it was called,
meaning individualism and eccentricity. ~ p.85

November 20

Any kind of organized revolt against the Party,
which was bound to be a failure,
struck her as stupid.
The clever thing was to break the rules
and stay alive all the same. ~ p.138

November 21

'What was she like, your wife?' said Julia.
'She was - do you know the NEWSPEAK word GOODTHINKFUL?
Meaning naturally orthodox,
incapable of thinking a bad thought? ~ p.138

November 22

What was more important was that
sexual privation induced hysteria,
which was desirable because it could be
transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. ~ p.139

November 23

CRIMESTOP means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct,
at the threshold of any dangerous thought.
It includes the power of not grasping analogies,
of failing to perceive logical errors,
of misunderstanding the simplest arguments
if they are inimical to INGSOC,
and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought
which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.
CRIMESTOP, in short, means protective stupidity. ~ p.221

November 24

CRIMESTOP...includes the power of
not grasping analogies. ~ p.221

November 25

CRIMESTOP means the faculty of...
failing to perceive logical errors. ~ p.221

November 26

CRIMESTOP means the faculty of
misunderstanding the simplest arguments
if they are inimical to INGSOC. ~ p.221

November 27

CRIMESTOP means the faculty of,
and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought
which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. ~ p.221

November 28

CRIMESTOP, in short,
means protective stupidity. ~ p.221

November 29

DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of INGSOC,
since the essential act of the Party
is to use conscious deception
while retaining the firmness of purpose
that goes with complete honesty. ~ p.223

November 30

DOUBLETHINK means the power of
holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously,
and accepting both of them. ~ p.223

December 1

DOUBLETHINK...to tell deliberate lies
while genuinely believing in them. ~ p.223

December 2

DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of INGSOC,
since the essential act of the Party is
to use conscious deception
while retaining firmness of purpose
that goes with complete honesty. ~ p.223

December 3

The process [of DOUBLETHINK] has to be conscious,
or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision,
but also has to be unconscious,
or it would bring with it
a feeling of falsity or guilt. ~ p.223

December 4

If one is to rule, and to continue ruling,
one must be able
to dislocate the sense of reality. ~ p.224

December 5

The secret of rulership
is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility
with the power to learn from past mistakes. ~ p.224

December 6

It is in the ranks of the Party,
and above all of the INNER PARTY,
that the true war enthusiasm is found. ~ p.225

December 7

Below BIG BROTHER comes the INNER PARTY,
its numbers limited to six millions,
or something less than two per cent
of the population of OCEANIA. ~ p.217

December 8

The essence of oligarchical rule
is not father-to-son inheritance,
but the persistence of a certain world-view
and a certain way of life,
imposed by the dead upon the living. ~ p.218

December 9

The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood
but with perpetuating itself.
Who wields power is not important,
provided that the hierarchical structure
remains always the same. ~ p.218

December 10

All the beliefs, habits, emotions, mental attitudes
that characterize our time
are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party
and prevent the true nature of present-day society
from being perceived. ~ p.219

December 11

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. ~ p.200

December 12

In his capacity as an administrator,
it is often necessary for a member of the INNER PARTY
to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful,
and he may often be aware that
the entire war is spurious and is either not happening
or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones:
but such knowledge is easily neutralized
by the technique of DOUBLETHINK. ~ p.200

December 13

Even the names of the four Ministries by which we are governed
exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts.
The MINISTRY OF PEACE concerns itself with WAR,
the MINISTRY OF TRUTH with LIES,
the MINISTRY OF LOVE with TORTURE and
the MINISTRY OF PLENTY with STARVATION.
These contradictions are not accidental,
nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy:
they are deliberate exercises in DOUBLETHINK. ~ p.225

December 14

DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of INGSOC,
since the essential act of the Party is
to use conscious deception
while retaining the firmness of purpose
that goes with complete honesty. ~ p.223

December 15

DOUBLETHINK means the power of
holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously,
and accepting both of them. ~ p.223

December 16

DOUBLETHINK...has to be unconscious,
or it would bring with it
a feeling of falsity
and hence of guilt. ~ p.223

December 17

DOUBLETHINK...to tell deliberate lies
while genuinely believing in them. ~ p.223

December 18

DOUBLETHINK...to forget any fact
that has become inconvenient, and then,
when it becomes necessary again,
to draw it back from oblivion
for just so long as it is needed. ~ p.223

December 19

DOUBLETHINK...to deny the existence of objective reality
and all the while
to take account of the reality which one denies -
all this is indispensably necessary. ~ p.223

December 20

Even in using the word DOUBLETHINK
it is necessary to exercise DOUBLETHINK.
For by using the word
one admits that one is tampering with reality;
by a fresh act of DOUBLETHINK
one erases this knowledge;
and so on indefinitely,
with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. ~ p.223

December 21

The process [of DOUBLETHINK] has to be conscious,
or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision,
but also has to be unconscious,
or it would bring with it
a feeling of falsity or guilt. ~ p.223

December 22

If one is to rule, and to continue ruling,
one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality.
For the secret of rulership
is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility
with the power to learn from past mistakes. ~ p.224

December 23

It need hardly be said that
the subtlest practitioners of DOUBLETHINK
those who invented DOUBLETHINK and know that
it is a vast system of mental cheating.
In our society, those who have
the best knowledge of what is happening
are also those who are
furthest from seeing the world as it is. ~ p.224

December 24

If he is a person naturally orthodox
(in NEWSPEAK a GOODTHINKER),
he will in all circumstances,
know without taking thought,
what is the true belief
or the desirable emotion. ~ p220

December 25

The first and simplest stage in the discipline,
which can be taught even to young children,
is called, in NEWSPEAK, CRIMESTOP.
CRIMESTOP means the faculty of stopping short,
as though by instinct,
at the threshold of any dangerous thought. ~ p.220

December 26

CRIMESTOP...includes the power of
not grasping analogies. ~ p.220

December 27

CRIMESTOP...includes the power of
failing to perceive logical errors. ~ p.220

December 28

CRIMESTOP...includes the power of
misunderstanding the simplest arguments
if they are inimical to Ingsoc. ~ p.220-221

December 29

CRIMESTOP...includes the power of
being bored or repelled by any train of thought
which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. ~ p.221

December 30

CRIMESTOP, in short, means
protective stupidity.
But stupidity is not enough. ~ p.221

December 31

But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century
all the main currents of political thought were authoritarian.
The earthly paradise had been discredited
at exactly the moment
when it became realisable. ~ p.213

~ 365 Orwell texts from Nineteen Eighty-Four
compiled by Carman de Voer ~

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

email: orwelltoday@gmail.com
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website: www.orwelltoday.com