The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.

George Orwell · Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), pt. I, ch. 7

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.

George Orwell · The source reads: “All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” · Why I Write (1946)

Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell · The Party slogan in 1984.

Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.

George Orwell · Winston's thought about O'Brien in Part Three, chapter 2, during his interrogation in the Ministry of Love.

More Truth Quotes

The price of justice is eternal publicity.

Arnold Bennett

Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization.

William Hazlitt

Books will speak plain when counsellors blanch.

Francis Bacon

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“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.”

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.”

“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”

“The price of justice is eternal publicity.”

“Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization.”

“Books will speak plain when counsellors blanch.”