Power in THT and 1984 Quotes

1984: “power is…

…power over human beings. Over the body - but, above all, over the mind.”

THT: “The house…

…is what he holds”

1984: “If you are…

…a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone?”

THT: “Be fruitful…

…and multiply, and replenish the Earth”

THT: “You can’t…

…make an omelette without breaking eggs”

THT: “Better…

…never means better for everyone”

THT: “To him…

…I am not merely empty”

THT: “Now of course…

…it’s something different. Now it’s forbidden, for us. Now it’s dangerous. Now it’s indecent. Now it’s something he can’t do with his Wife […] It’s as if he’s offered me drugs.”

THT: “He wanted…

…me to play Scrabble with him and kiss him as if I meant it”

1984: “it was not even…

…unorthodoxy that was written across his face, but simply intelligence.”

1984: “[Winston] had a curious…

…feeling that O’Brien was his protector”

1984: “[O’Brien] gave an impression…

…of confidence and an understanding tinged by irony”

"1984: “like a ball of…

…matter, a part of himself yet unconnected with the rest of him, a kind of cyst”

1984: “Do it…

…to Julia”

1984: “But…

…it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

THT: “Which of us…

…is it worse for, her or me?”

THT: “The rings…

…of her hand cut into my fingers. It may or may not be revenge.”

THT: “Her garden…

…is her domain”

1984: “It was really the paint…

…that appealed to me, the whiteness of it, like a mask and the bright red lips. Party women never paint their faces.”

1984: “In his mind…

…the smell of it was inextricably mixed up with fornication”

1984: “saw her in the light…

…she was quite an old woman […] But I went ahead and did it just the same”

1984: “Consorting with prostitutes….

…was forbidden, of course”

1984: “unforgivable crime…

…was promiscuity between Party members”

1984: “Sexual intercourse was…

…to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation”

1984: “The Party was trying…

…to kill the sex instinct, or if it could not be killed then to distort it and dirty it.”

1984: “The women of the Party…

…were all alike. Chastity was as deeply ingrained in them as Party loyalty.”

1984: ““Even to have awakened…

…Katharine, if he could have achieved it, would have been like a seduction, although she was his wife”

THT: “a man is just….

…a woman’s strategy for making other women”

THT: “better at fixing…

…cars and playing football, just what we need for the improvement of the human race”

THT: “I didn’t want…

…to be the model offspring, the incarnation of her ideas”

THT: “You were a…

…wanted child, all right”

THT: “biologically…

…I’m twenty two”

THT: “She wouldn’t dye…

…it. Why pretend?”

THT: “I’ve started…

…it and I’m going to finish it”

1984: “she had without exception…

…the most stupid vulgar, empty mind”

1984: not a thought in her…

…head that was not a slogan”

1984: “The human…

…sound-track’ he nicknamed her in his own mind”

1984: “To embrace…

…her was like embracing a jointed wooden image […] clasping him against her he had the feeling she was simultaneously pushing him away with all her strength”

1984: “neither resisting nor cooperating…

…but submitting”

1984: “our duty…

…to the Party”

1984: "Some women...

…They said there was no sense in breeding. Aunt Lydia's nostrils narrow: such wickedness. They were lazy women, she says.”

1984: “Where I am…

…is not a prison but a privilege”

THT: “This may not seem ordinary to you now…

…but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.”

THT: “Freedom…

…to and freedom from”

THT: “hers to…

…define”

THT: “Modesty is…

…invisibility, said Aunt Lydia. Never forget it. To be seen […] is to be […] penetrated”

1984: “rebel…

…from the waist downwards”

1984: “Always yell…

…with the crowd, that’s what I say. It’s the only way to be safe.”

THT: “For every rule there is…

..an exception: this too can be depended upon. The Aunts are allowed to read and write”

1984: “There was always a faint air…

…of secrecy about her, as though she were hiding something.”

1984: “She only questioned…

…the teachings of the Party when they in some way touched upon her own life”

1984: "With Julia, everything…

…came back to her own sexuality”

1984: “She had no interest…

…in Party doctrine. The only thing that mattered was personal relationships.”

THT: “I’ve learned to…

…do without a lot of things. If you have a lot of things, saint Aunt Lydia, you get too attached to the material world and you forget about spiritual value. You must cultivate poverty of spirit. Blessed are the meek.”

1984: "It was something in…

…your face. I thought I’d take a chance. I’m good at spotting people who don’t belong.”

1984: "She was much…

…better at organizing things than he was... She had become expert, judging by the frequency with which she smuggled things home."

THT: “For the ones who…

…come after you, it will be easier. They will accept their duties with willing hearts. She did not say: Because they will have no memories, of any other way. She said: Because they won't want things they can't have.”

THT: “electric…

…cattle prods”

THT: “They were…

…objects of fear to us”

THT: “under…

…his eye”

THT: “not yet…

…permitted to touch a woman”

THT: “A rat in…

…a maze is free to go anywhere as long as it stays inside the maze”

THT: “The Marthas…

…are not supposed to fraternize with us”

THT: “They have to do everything…

…if they can”

THT: “With the Unwomen…

…and starve to death and Lord knows what all?”

1984: “Thoughtcrime does…

…not entail death, thoughtcrime is death”

1984: “Had to…

live […] in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard”

1984: “even people…

who could barely read or write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory”

1984: “The proles were…

nearly always right when they gave you a warning of this kind […] seemed to possess some kind of instinct”

1984: “The old…

…man’s memory was nothing but a rubbish-heap of details”