Eric Arthur Blair alias George Orwell was born in Motihari, India on June 25th 1903. They soon moved to England and settled on the banks of the river Thames. In a childhood encounter with a little girl who found him standing on his head in the fields nearby, Orwell is supposed to have explained his position to her by saying, “”You are noticed more if you stand on your head than if you are right way up.”
Eric Arthur Blair went on to publish some of the most notable works of the twentieth century such as “Animal Farm” “1984” and others under the pen name of George Orwell. His writing style was so distinct that it earned its own adjective better known as “Orwellian”
‘Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.’
This is his famous line from his stimulating writings on truth and lies which have been complied in a volume named “Truth” which the New York Times reviewed as “Anyone who wants to understand the twentieth century will have to read Orwell”
Orwell’s most notable invention the “pigs” of “Animal Farm” are probably the truest in double speak and his thoughts referred today as “Orwellian” makes us all think about the present day arguments in power and politics like the rise and favoritism of benevolent dictators, the rights of the forces such as the police in gunning down citizens under the guise of protection, the manipulation of data by the government agencies in cohorts with the major corporations, self censorship of the press for their own safety and many more. Today on his 115th birthday the writings of George Orwell and the ideas propounded by them stands firm through out and these quotes are bestowed to his honour….
“until they became conscious they will never rebel and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious”
“a people that elect corrupt politicians, impostors, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices”
“men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness”
“power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again”
“the most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history”
“you are free to be a drunkard, an idler, a coward, a backbiter, a fornicator but you are not free to think for yourself”
“if liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”
