One wants to live, of course, indeed one only stays alive by virtue of the fear of death, but I think, as I thought then, that it is better to die violently and not too old.
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
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? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?
On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.
Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.
In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
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.
The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.
