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The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and such circumstances, what would you do?’, whereas the opposition is not obliged to tak...more

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Liberal - a power worshipper without power.

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The whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish day-dream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you wa...more

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O’Brien: How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?Winston: By making him suffer.O’Brien: Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is no...more

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Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.

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And yet it was a fact that if Syme grasped, even for three seconds, the nature of his, Winston's, secret opinions, he would betray him instantly to th...more

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He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless,because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so ...

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If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality.

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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 other...more

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How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?”Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said.“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is...more

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We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.

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At the time I could not see beyond the moral dilemma that is presented to the weak in a world governed by the strong: Break the rules, or perish.

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For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life trying to impress the 'natives,' and so in every crisis he has got to do what the 'na...more

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I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could ...more