George Orwell saw our world coming—cameras everywhere, truth up for grabs, power rewriting yesterday.
In 1984, Winston Smith faces that reality, and I couldn’t stop underlining lines that feel too close to home.
I’ve collected 50 quotes from the 1984: 75th Anniversary Mass Market Paperback (1961, with Erich Fromm’s afterword), with page numbers, grouped into themes that demand your attention.
Page numbers might shift by edition, but these are from my copy—Erich Fromm calls it a wake-up call, and trust me, you’ll want to see what woke me up.
1984 Surveillance Quotes
Imagine living where every breath, every glance, is tracked—not by a nosy neighbor, but by a system that never sleeps. Orwell sets this tone right away in 1984, with telescreens and slogans like “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” painting a world where privacy isn’t just lost; it’s unthinkable.
These quotes pull you into that suffocation, showing how surveillance isn’t just about control—it’s about fear becoming normal.
Picture Winston’s telescreen glowing in your room—or your phone tracking you now. Want an image of that?
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Narrator), Part One, Chapter 1, Page 1
“BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Sign), Part One, Chapter 1, Page 2
“Outside, even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part One, Chapter 1, Page 2
“The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator), Part One, Chapter 1, Page 3
“There was no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any moment… You had to live assuming every sound was overheard, every movement scrutinized.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator), Part One, Chapter 1, Page 3
“Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen, so far as sight went. He could
be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed in his present position he could not be seen.”~George Orwell, 1984, (Narrator), Part One, Chapter 1, Page 6
“May I see your papers, comrade?”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Patrols), Part One, Chapter 8, Page 83
Quotes on Control and Power
The Party in 1984 doesn’t just want obedience—it wants your soul. Orwell crafts a regime that twists words, history, and even logic itself, from the Ministry of Truth’s rewriting of facts to O’Brien’s cold lectures on power.
These quotes reveal a machine that runs on contradiction and fear—not just plot points, but Orwell’s warning about power that doesn’t bend.
Here’s the Party’s twisted motto:
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Party Slogans), Part One, Chapter 1, Page 4
Analysis: This trio of slogans is 1984’s backbone—paradoxes that demand you stop thinking. “War is peace” suggests endless conflict keeps society stable, a twisted logic that’s echoed in real-world propaganda. It’s a fan favorite because it’s so quotable, yet so unsettling—Orwell’s genius is making nonsense feel inevitable.
“The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least twenty-five years in a forced-labor camp.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator), Part One, Chapter 1, Page 6
“Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it… All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator about Winston Smith), Part One, Chapter 2, Page 24
“If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part One, Chapter 3, Page 34
“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part One, Chapter 4, Page 35
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part One, Chapter 5, Page 51
“Orthodoxy means not thinking–not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Syme to Winston), Part One, Chapter 5, Page 53
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator about Winston), Part One, Chapter 7, Page 70
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston Smith), Part Two, Chapter 5, Page 155
“In a way, the world−view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator), Part Two, Chapter 5, Page 156
“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator), Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 191
“The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.”
~ George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator), Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 207
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The narrator), Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 214
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston), Part Three, Chapter 2, Page 248
Analysis: History’s the real weapon here. This line cuts to 1984’s core: history isn’t just facts—it’s power. Winston knows the Party rewrites the past to lock in its future, a tactic that feels ripped from today’s debates over truth. Orwell’s point? Lose the past, lose everything—it’s why this quote keeps popping up.
“We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (O’Brien to Winston), Part Three, Chapter 2, Page 253
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (O’Brien to Winston), Part Three, Chapter 3, Page 263
“One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (O’Brien to Winston), Part Three, Chapter 3, Page 263
“The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?’
~George Orwell, 1984, (O’Brien to Winston), Part Three, Chapter 3, Page 263
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (O’Brien to Winston), Part Three, Chapter 3, Page 266
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (O’Brien to Winston), Part Three, Chapter 3, Page 267
Analysis: O’Brien’s darkest promise. This grim vision—“a boot stamping on a human face—for ever”—is a Google standout for its raw imagery. O’Brien isn’t predicting; he’s promising a future where power crushes hope endlessly. It’s Orwell at his bleakest, a warning that sticks because it feels possible.
“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part Three, Chapter 4, Page 277
“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston Smith), Part 3, Chapter 4, Page 281
Quotes on Freedom and Truth
What’s left when the truth is whatever the Party says? Orwell takes us inside Winston’s head as he fights to hold onto simple facts—like 2+2=4—against a world that demands lies.
These quotes aren’t just rebellion; they’re a desperate grab for sanity in a storm of doublethink—some, like “Freedom is the freedom…,” echo loudest because they’re so human.
“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston’s thoughts), Part One, Chapter 2, Page 25
“He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator about Winston Smith), Part One, Chapter 2, Page 27
“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull. ”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The narrator about Winston Smith’s thoughts), Part one, Chapter 2, Page 27
“To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone— to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink — greetings!”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston Smith), Part One, Chapter 2, Page 28
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston Smith), Part One. Chapter 7, Page 81
Analysis: Winston’s quiet stand: This line’s a standout for a reason—it’s Winston’s quiet manifesto. In a world where math can be a lie, saying “2+2=4” becomes an act of defiance, a stake in reality. Orwell ties freedom to truth here, making it resonate beyond the book.
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part One, Chapter 7, Page 81
“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable?
~George Orwell, 1984, (The narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part One, Chapter 7, Page 80
“If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part One, Chapter 7, Page 80
“Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part One, Chapter 7, Page 80
“The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Narrator about Winston Smith’s thoughts), Part Two, Chapter 8, Page 200
“There was truth and there was untruth, and i you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The narrator), Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 217
“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 217
“Sanity is not statistical.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston Smith), Part Two, Chapter 10, Page 218
“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (O’Brien to Winston), Part Three, Chapter 2, Page 249
“You are a slow learner, Winston.”
“How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”
“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (O’Brien and Winston Smith), Pages 250-251
“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston Smith), Part Three, Chapter 2, Page 252
“I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (O’Brien to Winston Smith), Part Three, Chapter Two, Page 259
“To die hating them, that was freedom.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston Smith), Part Three, Chapter 4, Page 281
Quotes on Human Connection
In a world designed to isolate, Orwell slips in glimmers of what the Party can’t kill—love, loyalty, a shared sky. Winston and Julia’s moments, or his ache for a lost past, feel fragile but fierce against 1984’s gray backdrop.
These quotes remind us: that connection is rebellion too.
“Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there were still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason.”
~George Orwell, 1984, Part One, (The Narrator about Winston), Chapter 3, Page 30
“If you kept the small rules you could break the big ones.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Julia to Winston), Part One, Chapter 3, Page 129
“‘You’re only a rebel from the waist downwards,’ he told her.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston Smith to Julia), Part Two, Chapter 5, Page 156
“If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The narrator about Julia), Part 2, Chapter 7, Page 164
“Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston Smith to Julia), Part Two. Chapter 7, Page 166
“It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same–everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another’s existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same–people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 220
“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part Three, Chapter 3, Page 262
Quotes on Fear and Defeat
Orwell doesn’t flinch from the dark—fear and pain aren’t side notes; they’re the Party’s endgame.
These quotes trace Winston’s unraveling, from nerves betraying him to the moment heroism fades. It’s raw, human, and a stark flip to the defiance elsewhere.
“Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part One, Chapter 6, Pages 63-64
“The consequences of every act are included in the act itself.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part One, Chapter 2, Page 28
“In the face of pain there are no heroes.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (Narrator about Winston’s thoughts), Part Three, Chapter 1, Page 239
Why 1984 Still Matters
Orwell’s telescreens feel like smartphones sometimes, don’t they? Are we being watched? By soulless corporations or big governments, foreign or domestic?
These quotes aren’t just dystopian relics—they’re a lens for spotting control in our world, from news spins to data grabs. “Who controls the past…” isn’t abstract; it’s a question for today. That’s why 1984 sticks—it’s less a story and more a mirror.
Sources and Citations
Orwell, George. 1984: 75th Anniversary Mass Market Paperback. Signet Classics, 1961. Afterword by Erich Fromm.
MLA:
Mortis, Jeremy. “1984 Quotes With Page Numbers By George Orwell.” Ageless Investing, 13 Nov. 2021, https://agelessinvesting.com/1984-quotes/. Accessed 16 Mar. 2025. (use current date)
APA:
Mortis, J. (2021, November 13). 1984 quotes with page numbers by George Orwell. Ageless Investing. https://agelessinvesting.com/1984-quotes/
What’s Next?
Orwell’s words linger—maybe “Who controls the past…” Have you rethinking history, or “War is peace” feels too close to today.
Try this: pick one quote and ask yourself what it means now, then dig deeper with these. Winston’s defiance lives at https://agelessinvesting.com/winston-1984-quotes/—see his fight up close.
Julia’s spark shines at https://agelessinvesting.com/julia-1984-quotes/—her rebellion’s quieter but fierce. And Big Brother’s shadow looms at https://agelessinvesting.com/1984-big-brother-quotes/—power unmasked. Which idea won’t let you go? Drop it below!
Published on: Nov 13, 2021 | Updated: March 16, 2025
By Jeremy Mortis: I’m an avid reader who’s handpicked the best quotes from over 100 books, so you don’t have to For 1984, I’ve tracked page numbers to bring Orwell’s genius to you. Join me in exploring timeless wisdom!