1984 Truth Quotes

Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.

– George Orwell

1984. Part 1, Chapter 4. Winston’s thoughts as he invents the fictitious war hero Comrade Ogilvy, while ‘rectifying’ historical documents at the Ministry of Truth. His job is to falsify the past to accord with the Party’s latest version of reality. A written example of ‘doublethink’.

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

1984. Part 1, Chapter 7. Winston. Orwell got inspiration from a real event in Russia where the community party celebrated achieving a production goal in four years instead of five by announcing the workers had made 2+2=5.

It seemed to him that he knew exactly what it felt like to sit in a room like this, in an armchair beside an open fire with your feet in the fender and a kettle on the hob: utterly alone, utterly secure, with nobody watching you, no voice pursuing you, no sound except the singing of the kettle and the friendly ticking of the clock.

– George Orwell

1984. Part 1, Chapter 8. Winston’s feelings in the cozy, old-fashioned room above junk-shop in prole quarters, belonging to Mr. Charrington. But it is all a lie, as is in a property ofa member of the Thought Police and under surveillance from a hidden telescreen.
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