On 1984: Quotes for the Orwellian Future Happening Today

On 1984: Quotes for the Orwellian Future Happening Today

by James Daley
On 1984: Quotes for the Orwellian Future Happening Today

On 1984: Quotes for the Orwellian Future Happening Today

by James Daley

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Overview

2017. America is drastically divided and, some would argue, is starting to resemble George Orwell’s portrayal of a totalitarian state in his iconic novel, 1984. In the age of alternative facts, internal hostility, and President Donald Trump, a large portion of America is begging for a way to cope with the uncertainty looming over the country.

On 1984: Quotes for the Orwellian Future Happening Today is filled with hundreds of alarmingly relevant quotes by notable people of the past and present, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Che Guevara, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and George Orwell himself. The quotes within the book are each separated by topic. The subjects addressed include fear, prejudice, power, corruption, alternative facts, resistance, and many other pertinent topics to the current state of the United States, and the world at large.

The book features classic memorable quotes sure to inspire and enlighten in these troubling times, such as: “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” —George Orwell

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781631582219
Publisher: Racehorse
Publication date: 05/16/2017
Pages: 144
Product dimensions: 5.10(w) x 6.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

James Daley is a writer, editor, and designer of various paper-based and digital things. Since finishing his MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2004, he has been spending most of his time teaching writing to college students, creating websites about video games, and writing mystery novels about pensive young ne’erdowells. When he's not obsessively poring over pixels and pronouns, he can usually be found arguing with strangers on the Internet or seeking out adventure with his indomitable wife and venturesome daughters.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Fake News and Alternative Facts

(Or, Quotations on Propaganda, Lies, and Freedom of the Press)

"Negative polls are fake news." "Russia is fake news." "You are fake news."

— Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America (b. 1946)

* * *

"But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success."

— Adolf Hitler, German Chancellor and leader of the Nazi Party (1889 — 1945)

"Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods."

— Chuck Todd, American broadcast journalist (b. 1972)

* * *

"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense."

— George Orwell, English author and essayist (1903 — 1950), from 1984

* * *

"Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it."

— Lysander Spooner, American anarchist and political philosopher (1808 — 1887)

* * *

"The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world — and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end — is being destroyed."

— Hannah Arendt, German-American political theorist (1906 — 1975)

"Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain."

— Friedrich von Schiller, German playwright and philosopher (1759 — 1805)

* * *

"When widely followed public figures feel free to say anything, without any fact-checking, it becomes impossible for a democracy to think intelligently about big issues."

— Thomas L. Friedman, American journalist and author (b. 1953)

* * *

"But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie."

— Khaled Hosseini, Afghan-born American novelist (b. 1965)

* * *

"Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?"

— Cicero, Roman philosopher and rhetorician (106 — 43 BC)

* * *

"When one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state."

— Euripides, Greek dramatist (480 — 406 BC)

* * *

"The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

— John Stuart Mill, English philosopher and political economist (1806 — 1873)

* * *

"A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society."

— Walter Lippmann, American political commentator (1889 — 1974)

* * *

"There is nothing in the record of the past two years when both Houses of Congress have been controlled by the Republican Party which can lead any person to believe that those promises will be fulfilled in the future. They follow the Hitler line — no matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth."

— John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States of America (1917 — 1963)

* * *

"Human beings live in their myths. They only endure their realities."

— Robert Anton Wilson, American novelist (1932 — 2007)

* * *

"Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse."

— Adlai Stevenson II, American politician and diplomat (1900 — 1965)

"There is one freedom on which all other liberties depend and that is freedom of expression, freedom of speech, of print. If this is taken away, no other freedom can exist, or at least it would be soon suppressed."

— Leszek KoÅ‚akowski, Polish philosopher (1927 — 2009)

* * *

"You don't need people's opinion on a fact. You might as well have a poll asking: 'Which number is bigger, 15 or 5?' or 'Do owls exist?' or 'Are there hats?'"

— John Oliver, English comedian and political commentator (b. 1977)

* * *

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

— Martin Luther King, Jr., American Baptist minister and civil rights activist (1929 — 1968)

* * *

"The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

— Henry A. Wallace, 33rd Vice President of the United States of America (1888 — 1965)

* * *

"It is part of the price of leadership of this great and free nation to be the target of clever satirists."

— Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States of America (1908 — 1973)

* * *

"Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it."

— Hannah Arendt, German-American political theorist (1906 — 1975)

* * *

"Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state."

— Noam Chomsky, American linguist and political activist (b. 1928)

* * *

"I'm not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance."

— Jon Stewart, American comedian and political commentator (b. 1962)

"No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong."

— François de La Rochefoucauld, French author (1613 — 1680)

* * *

"A free press can of course be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad."

— Albert Camus, French existentialist author and playwright (1913 — 1960)

* * *

"I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking."

— Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States of America (1856 — 1924)

* * *

"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth."

— Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States of America (1882 — 1945)

* * *

"Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don't know whether it's a new thing, but it's certainly a current thing, in that it doesn't seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything."

— Stephen Colbert, American comedian and television host (b. 1964)

* * *

"Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived."

— Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian political philosopher (1469 — 1527)

* * *

"The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty."

— Adlai Stevenson II, American politician and diplomat (1900 — 1965)

* * *

"In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly."

— Justice Hugo L. Black, American politician and Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court (1886 — 1971)

* * *

"The greatest friend of Truth is time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion Humility."

— Charles Caleb Colton, English author and clergyman (1780 — 1832)

"It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise."

— Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda during Nazi control of Germany (1897 — 1945)

* * *

"Against logic there is no armor like ignorance."

— Laurence J. Peter, Canadian educator and author (1919 — 1990)

* * *

"The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity."

— André Gide, French author (1869 — 1951)

* * *

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."

— Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist (1879 — 1955)

* * *

"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously."

— Hubert H. Humphrey, 38th Vice President of the United States of America (1911 — 1978)

"I think if the people of this country can be reached with the truth, their judgment will be in favor of the many, as against the privileged few."

— Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States of America (1884 — 1962)

* * *

"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few."

— Bishop George Berkeley, Irish philosopher (1685 — 1753)

* * *

"Truthfulness has never been counted among the political virtues, and lies have always been regarded as justifiable tools in political dealings."

— Hannah Arendt, German-American political theorist (1906 — 1975)

* * *

"But all was false and hollow; though his tongue

Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear

The better reason."

— John Milton, English poet (1608 — 1674)

* * *

"He is one of those orators of whom it was well said, 'Before they get up, they do not know what they are going to say; when they are speaking, they do not know what they are saying; and when they sit down they do not know what they have said.'"

— Winston Churchill, English statesman and Prime Minister (1874 — 1965)

"If Satan ever laughs, it must be at hypocrites; they are the greatest dupes he has."

— Charles Caleb Colton, English author and clergyman (1780 — 1832)

* * *

"When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts."

— Michael Ende, German novelist (1929 — 1995), from The Neverending Story

* * *

"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps, both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

— James Madison, 4th President of the United States of America (1751 — 1836)

* * *

"Talking much about oneself may be a way of hiding oneself."

— Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844 — 1900)

* * *

"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."

— Josh Billings, American humorist author (1818 — 1885)

"Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."

— Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., American lawyer and Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court (1906 — 1997), New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 1964

* * *

"Nothing really succeeds which is not based on reality; sham, in a large sense, is never successful. In the life of the individual, as in the more comprehensive life of the State, pretension is nothing and power is everything."

— Edwin Percy Whipple, American essayist (1819 — 1886)

* * *

"We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts."

— Patrick Henry, American politician orator (1736 — 1799)

* * *

"Everything that deceives may be said to enchant."

— Plato, Greek philosopher (c. 427 — 347 BC)

* * *

"We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else, whether it is a business, an economic theory, a political party, the White House, Newsworld or CNN."

— B. W. Powe, Canadian poet and author (b. 1955)

"One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are."

— Alexander Hamilton, American statesman (1755 — 1804)

* * *

"You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time."

— Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America (1809 — 1865), attributed

* * *

"Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!"

— Charles Dickens, English author (1812 — 1870), from Hard Times

* * *

"You don't have to fool all the people all of the time; you just have to fool enough to get elected."

— Gerald Barzan, American humorist and author

"It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit."

— Noël Coward, English Playwright (1899 — 1973)

* * *

"If decade after decade the truth cannot be told, each person's mind begins to roam irretrievably. One's fellow countrymen become harder to understand than Martians."

— Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russian author and historian (1918 — 2008)

* * *

"He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers."

— Charles Pierre Péguy, French poet and essayist (1873 —1914)

* * *

"Truth is treason in the empire of lies."

— Ron Paul, American politician (b. 1935)

* * *

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."

— Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author (1934 — 1996)

"He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander."

— Napoléon Bonaparte, French military leader and Emperor of the French (1769 — 1821)

* * *

"The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water."

— Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish novelist (1547 — 1616), from Don Quixote

* * *

"You can't adopt politics as a profession and remain honest."

— Louis McHenry Howe, American journalist and advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1871 — 1936)

* * *

"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."

— Socrates, Greek philosopher (c. 469 — 399 BC)

* * *

"The ability to discriminate between that which is true and that which is false is one of the last attainments of the human mind."

— James Fenimore Cooper, American novelist (1789 — 1851)

* * *

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them."

— Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States of America (1743 — 1826)

* * *

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

— George Orwell, English author and essayist (1903 — 1950), from 1984

* * *

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

— Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States of America (1743 — 1826)

* * *

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."

— Henry David Thoreau, American essayist, poet, and philosopher (1817 — 1862)

* * *

"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."

— A. J. Liebling, American journalist (1904 — 1963)

(Continues…)


Excerpted from "On 1984"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Racehorse Publishing.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Fake News and Alternative Facts: (Or, Quotations on Propaganda, Lies, and Freedom of the Press) 7

Bad Hombres: (Or, Quotations on the Nature of Fear and Prejudice) 35

Draining the Swamp: (Or, Quotations on Politics and Corruption) 65

Order and Strength: (Or, Quotations on Fascism, Oppression, and Tyranny) 85

Resistance 113

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