George Orwell - War Quotes

38 Sourced Quotes

View all George Orwell Quotes
Everyone always did miss everyone else in this war, whenever it was humanly possible to do so.

George Orwell
All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

George Orwell
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

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

George Orwell
People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has man invented that even approaches in cruelty to some of the commoner diseases? "Natural" death, almost by definition, means something slow, smelly and painful.

George Orwell
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
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.

George Orwell
Bombing is not especially inhumane. War itself is inhumane and the bombing plane, which is used to paralyse industry and transport, is a relatively civilised weapon. 'Normal' or 'legitimate' warfare is just as destructive of inanimate objects and enormously so of human lives.

George Orwell