Introduction: George Orwell has rightfully become a major source of quotes because he has much to say to us, especially about politics, liberty, language, and their intersection. Unfortunately, he has also become a "quote magnet", that is, a person who has quotes attributed to him that he didn't actually say. This page collects together in one place quotes falsely attributed to Orwell, or genuine quotes taken misleadingly out of context.
Of course, it's hard to prove that Orwell did not say something. However, the burden of proof is not on me to prove that he didn't say something; rather, the burden of proof is on those who "quote" him to provide a citation to his writings where the statement was made. If no citation is given, that is a reason to doubt that the quote is genuine.
In claiming that the following quotes are not from Orwell, I have relied on several types of evidence. First of all, some quotes simply do not sound like Orwell's writing to someone familiar with it; as with the lack of a citation, this is primarily a reason to be skeptical. Stronger evidence against the genuineness of an alleged Orwell quote is that a search of his writings turns up nothing. However, it's still possible, though unlikely, that the quote might be found in some obscure source that is not searchable. Finally, the only evidence that can establish conclusively that Orwell is not responsible for a quote is to find it in another writer who was not quoting Orwell, but this is rare.
The following types of misquotes are included on this page:
The entries are arranged below in alphabetical order by the misquote.
If you know of any misquotations of Orwell that should be included but aren't, wonder whether some alleged quote of Orwell is in fact genuine, have a citation for any of the following quotes, or have any other comments, questions, or corrections to this page, please let me know.
List of Misquotes: Click on a misquote to read the full entry for it.
Type: Contextomy
Exposition: Several years ago, I picked up a mass market paperback copy of James Hadley Chase's novel No Orchids for Miss Blandish. Having read Orwell's essay "Raffles and Miss Blandish", I was surprised to see the above blurb by Orwell on the back cover. Yes, he really did write that it was "a brilliant piece of writing", but there was no exclamation point. Here's the context of that blurb:
Context:
Now for a header into the cesspool. No Orchids for Miss Blandish, by James Hadley Chase…is not, as one might expect, the product of an illiterate hack, but a brilliant piece of writing, with hardly a wasted word or a jarring note anywhere. …[I]t takes for granted the most complete corruption and self-seeking as the norm of human behaviour. …[S]uch things as affection, friendship, good nature or even ordinary politeness simply do not enter. … Ultimately only one motive is at work throughout the whole story: the pursuit of power. …[T]he book is not in the ordinary sense pornography. … The thing that the ordinary reader ought to have objected to―almost certainly would have objected to, a few decades earlier―was the equivocal attitude towards crime. It is implied throughout No Orchids that being a criminal is only reprehensible in the sense that it does not pay. Being a policeman pays better, but there is no moral difference, since the police use essentially criminal methods. … In a book like No Orchids one is not, as in the old-style crime story, simply escaping from dull reality into an imaginary world of action. One's escape is essentially into cruelty and sexual perversion. … In No Orchids anything is 'done' so long as it leads on to power. All the barriers are down, all the motives are out in the open. … Several people, after reading No Orchids, have remarked to me, 'It's pure Fascism'. This is a correct description, although the book has not the smallest connexion with politics and very little with social or economic problems. … It is a daydream appropriate to a totalitarian age. In his imagined world of gangsters Chase is presenting, as it were, a distilled version of the modern political scene, in which such things as mass bombing of civilians, the use of hostages, torture to obtain confessions, secret prisons, execution without trial, floggings with rubber truncheons, drownings in cesspools, systematic falsification of records and statistics, treachery, bribery, and quislingism are normal and morally neutral, even admirable when they are done in a large and bold way.1
Exposure: Obviously, Orwell heartily despised Chase's novel, which just goes to show that no review is so bad that it can't be mined by a clever editor for a positive blurb.
Example: The back cover of No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase2.
Notes:
Type: Misattributed
Exposition: This is a rare case when we know the true author of the quote in question, namely, Selwyn Duke1, from an article as recent as fourteen years ago. How did Duke's quote get attributed to Orwell? We won't know for sure unless whoever was the first person to misattribute it comes forward, but it may be an example of Ralph Keyes' "axiom" that "famous quotes need famous mouths"2. Duke is less well-known than Orwell―in fact, I'm afraid that I'd never heard of him before I began researching the quote―so attributing the quote correctly would have less of an impact than putting the words into the better-known mouth.
Exposure: In the article from which the quote was taken3, the paragraph preceding the one in which it occurs mentions Orwell: "…[T]hey have thrust us into what George Orwell called 'a time of universal deceit,' where 'telling the truth is a revolutionary act.'" Ironically, this is itself a misquotation―see above. So, it's possible that whoever first misattributed the quote saw the name "Orwell" and mistakenly thought the subsequent remark was his, or confused the quote attributed to Orwell with Duke's subsequent words.
Example: Nina Godlewski, "George Orwell Quotes: Famous Sayings on Author's 115th Birthday", Newsweek, 2/26/2021
Notes:
Variant: "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
Type: Apocryphal
Exposition: It's not known who said this, but it was almost certainly not Orwell.
Exposure: This quote makes no sense since in a time of universal deceit, no one tells the truth, otherwise it would not be "universal". Orwell was too smart to have made that mistake.
Fact Checks:
Example: "'During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.'", GoodReads, accessed: 6/27/2023.
It's not a matter of whether the war is not real, or if it is. Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.
Type: Paraphrase
Exposition: This quote is taken from the narration near the end of Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11:
George Orwell once wrote that it's not a matter of whether the war is not real, or if it is. Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.1
This passage is not from Orwell's novel 1984, but is adapted from another movie, the 1984 adaptation of the novel:
In accordance to the principles of Doublethink it does not matter if the war is not real or when it is, that victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labor. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects. And its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia but to keep the very structure of society intact."2
This is not a direct quote from the book but a paraphrase of it used in the movie. Like many a lazy student, Moore cribbed from the movie rather than reading the book.
Exposure:
The movie paraphrases a book within the book, that is, the book titled The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, supposedly written by Emmanuel Goldstein, a lengthy "excerpt" of which is included within the book of 19843. In the movie, Winston Smith reads the passage from a copy of the book concealed within a Newspeak dictionary. As with another quote discussed on this page4, the words are those of a fictional character within a novel and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions of Orwell himself. Here are the most relevant passages of the book paraphrased in the movie:
To understand the nature of the present war…one must realize in the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive. … 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. … In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. … In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population. 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…. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. … 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. … The war, therefore…is merely an imposture. … But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. … War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. … 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. … It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. … A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This…is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is Peace.5
I've condensed the above passage, which covers several pages in the book, as much as possible. Later, near the end of 1984, O'Brien, the agent of the Thought Police who is torturing Smith, says to him:
"You have read the book, Goldstein's book, or parts of it, at least. Did it tell you anything that you did not know already?""You have read it?" said Winston.
"I wrote it. That is to say, I collaborated in writing it. No book is produced individually, as you know."
"Is it true, what it says?"
"A description, yes. The programme it sets forth is nonsense."6
Given that even Goldstein's supposedly subversive book is revealed to be party propaganda, there is a certain irony in contemporary people attributing paraphrases of the book to Orwell himself.
Example: Amardeep Singh, "George Orwell and Ray Bradbury in Farenheit [sic] 9/11", Lehigh University, 6/28/2004
Notes:
Variant: "News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising."
Type: Apocryphal
Exposition: This quote has the earmarks of an apocryphal one: no citation to Orwell's writings is ever given, it has mutated into variants, and it is sometimes attributed to others―for instance, the Variant has been attributed to William Randolph Hearst.
Exposure: This quote and the Variant sound a bit too cynical and simple-minded for Orwell.
Fact Checks:
Examples:
Variant: "People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
Type: Paraphrase
Exposition: One way in which quotes get misattributed is when someone paraphrases the words of another, then others quote the words of the paraphraser while attributing them to the paraphrased. That is what happened in this case. Richard Grenier, in a newspaper article, wrote: "As George Orwell pointed out, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.1" This is not a quote, as the lack of quotation marks indicates, but a paraphrase of what Grenier takes to be Orwell's view. So, if you like this quote and wish to use it, give Grenier the credit he deserves.
Exposure: While the exact words of the quote are not Orwell's, he did express similar sentiments. For instance, in an essay on Rudyard Kipling, he wrote: "He [Kipling] sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.2"
Fact Checks:
Example: "'People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.'", GoodReads, accessed: 6/27/2023.
Notes:
Type: Apocryphal
Exposition: The earliest occurrence of this quote that I've been able to find is from a pamphlet published in 2017 where it's attributed to "Georges" Orwell1―perhaps there really is someone of that name. So, we don't know who the actual author of the quote is, except that it almost certainly wasn't George Orwell. The ellipsis is a nice touch, since it makes it look as though it wasn't just made up.
Exposure:
Fact Checks:
Examples:
Notes:
Type: Apocryphal
Exposition: This quote might have started as an attempt to paraphrase Orwell, but it's too cynical and simple-minded to be something he wrote.
Fact Checks:
Example: "The people will believe what the media tells them they believe.", AZ Quotes, accessed: 6/12/2024. This is just one of the many online quote sites that attribute this quote to Orwell; such sites seem to do no fact-checking of their contents.
The people will not revolt. They will not look up from their screens long enough to notice what's happening.
Type: Misattributed
Exposition: This quote is supposedly from Nineteen Eighty-Four, but the novel was first published in 1949, so it sounds anachronistic. While there were "telescreens" in the novel, the quote gives the impression that it was written after the rise of the cell phone, that is, within the last few decades.
Exposure: The source of this quote is a 2013 stage adaptation of 1984*. Clearly, the writers of the play were attempting to update Orwell's novel and make it relevant to a 21st century audience.
Fact Checks:
Example: "'The people will not revolt. They will not look up from their screens.'", GoodReads, accessed: 6/27/2023
*Robert Icke & Duncan Macmillan, 1984 (2014)
Citation: George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Part 3, Chapter 2
Type: Contextomy
Exposition: In addition to being a journalist, Orwell was also a novelist, and one of the dangers of quoting from novels is putting the words of a fictional character into the mouth of the author. That's what has happened here. The quoted sentence is from Orwell's novel, 1984, but they are spoken by the character O'Brien while he tortures the protagonist Winston Smith.
Exposure: The quote represents exactly the opposite of what Orwell believed. For instance, in one of his newspaper columns, Orwell wrote:
The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits "atrocities" but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future. … There is some hope…that the liberal habit of mind, which thinks of truth as something outside yourself, something to be discovered, and not as something you can make up as you go along, will survive.*
Example: Nina Godlewski, "George Orwell Quotes: Famous Sayings on Author's 115th Birthday", Newsweek, 2/26/2021
*George Orwell, "As I Please", Tribune, 2/4/1944
Type: Paraphrase
Exposition: The earliest occurrence of this quote that I've found is in an essay by Roger Kimball from 2001: "George Orwell famously remarked that there are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.1" Obviously, this was intended as a paraphrase rather than a literal quote since there are no quotation marks. What Kimball was paraphrasing would seem to be an essay from 1945, in which Orwell wrote:
I have heard it confidently stated…that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.2
Exposure: Orwell was not the first person to notice the peculiar type of foolishness exhibited by some intellectuals. Here are a few earlier statements of similar sentiments:
The underlying sentiment of the quote appears to have been in circulation for literal millennia.
Example: Rich Lowry, "Rationality is not a white male thing", The Salt Lake Tribune, 10/26/2021
Notes:
Type: Paraphrase
Exposition: The first occurrence of this sentence that I've found is in a transcript of Keith Olbermann's MSNBC television show "Countdown" from 2006:
To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past. That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair, writing as George Orwell, gave us in the book "1984."1
The first sentence is not in quotation marks in the transcript, which suggests that it was not intended as a direct quote but as a summary of one of the themes of 1984. The commentary was later reprinted in book form where it occurs in italics rather than quotation marks2. It's unclear exactly what the italics is supposed to indicate, but some might take it as an indication of a direct quote. In any case, a failed search indicates that the sentence does not occur in 1984.
Exposure: In 1984, part of Winston Smith's job was, indeed, to "erase the truths of the past", but to also replace those truths with lies. Orwell did write:
Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place.3
Fact Check: John Rentoul, "The Top 10 fake George Orwell quotations", Independent, 9/16/2022
Notes:
Posted: 6/28/2023, revised: 6/20/2024