Quote of the Day

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.

He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions -- 'the Party says the earth is flat', 'the party says that ice is heavier than water' -- and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them.

Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.[3]

"Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."

You offend a Conservative by telling him a lie. You offend a Liberal by telling him the truth.

During the 1960s, one neighborhood in San Francisco had the lowest income, the highest unemployment rate, the highest proportion of families with incomes under $4,000 per year, the least educational attainment, the highest tuberculosis rate, the highest proportion of substandard housing of any area of the city. That neighborhood was called Chinatown. Yet in 1965, there were only five persons of Chinese ancestry committed to prison in the entire state of California.

The Chinese were for many years denied access to public schools of California, not allowed to testify against whites in trials, and made the object of discriminatory taxation. (p. 473)

The experience of the Chinese and Japanese suggests that social isolation, substandard living conditions, and general poverty are not invariably associated with high crime rates among racially distinct groups. (p. 474)

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"

"Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the
Government take care of him; better take a closer look at the American Indian."

"Luxury is more ruthless than war."

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments

And yet -- no weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of willpower. In a state of psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side.

To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being.

Nothing is left, then, but concessions, attempts to gain time and betrayal.

In Africa and Papua New Guinea they regularly roast witches. In America we don’t roast our witches. Instead, we call them “racists” and make them unemployable.

I envision a federal prohibition against speech or publications supporting racial theories of intelligence.

All papers, books and other documents advocating such theories will be burned, deleted or otherwise destroyed. Those who continue espousing such theories either publicly or privately (as determined by monitoring of email, phone calls or other communications) will be detained indefinitely in Guantanamo until or unless a secret tribunal overseen by me says they have expressed sufficient remorse and can be released.

When you lose the language, you lose the war.

"When public virtue is gone, when the national spirit is fled…the republic is lost in essence, though it may still exist in form."

Where is the horse and rider?
Where is the horn that was blowing?
They have passed like rain on the mountains,
like wind in the meadow.
The days have gone down in the west
behind the hills, into shadow.
How did it come to this?