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| Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, cover design by gray318 (sadly, the copy I have doesn't feature this badass cover art) |
"With it’s grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a
whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party
and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid
movement of the arm."
"He was a monstrous man, with a mane of greasy hair, his face
pouched and seamed, with protuberant lips. At one time he must have been
immensely strong; now his great body was sagging, sloping, bulging, falling
away in every direction. He seemed to be breaking up before one’s eyes, like a
mountain crumbling."
"It struck him that in moments of crisis one is never
fighting against an external enemy but always against one’s own body. … On the
battlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that you are
fighting for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it fills
the universe..."
"To hang on from day to day and from week to week, spinning
out a present that had no future, seemed an unconquerable instinct, just as
one’s lungs will always draw the next breath so long as there is air available."
"It spread out its wings, fitted them carefully into place
again, ducked its head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance to
the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent song. In the afternoon hush the
volume of sound was startling. … It was as though it were a kind of liquid
stuff that poured all over him and got mixed up with the sunlight that filtered
through the leaves."
"The end was contained in the beginning. But it was
frightening; or, more exactly, it was like a foretaste of death, like being a
little less alive."
"It is also that no change of doctrine or in political
alignment can ever be admitted. For to change one’s mind, or even one’s policy,
is a confession of weakness."
"Those whose attitude toward the war is most nearly rational
are the subject peoples of the disputed territories. To these people the war is
simply a continuous calamity which sweeps to and fro over their bodies like a
tidal wave."
“She’s beautiful,” he murmured. “She’s a meter across the
hips, easily,” said Julia. “That is her style of beauty,” said Winston.
"Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or
joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be
hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves."
"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a
dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in
order to establish the dictatorship."
"Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of
victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a
picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever."
Vocabulario:
palimpsest: a writing surface that is erased or scraped clean and reused, often over and over
sinecure: an office or position that requires little or no work
persiflage: frivolous banter, inflated ranting or railing of little consequence
debauch: used as a noun, a draining output leaving the worker spent and besmurched
fecundity: fertility, abundancy, productivity
execrate: to denounce, declare evil or utterly detestable
imposture: the act of deceiving by naming something or someone inaccurately
avaricious: hoarding and greedy, excessively acquisitive
ossified: to become as bone: hard, unchanging, tied to convention
pedant: one who celebrates exactitude and minutiae in the accumulation of knowledge, often at the expense of insight
baize: a coarse woolen or cotton fabric napped to imitate felt
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