If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.
George Orwell
- Author
- George Orwell
- Year
- 1949
- Genres
- social science fiction, political fiction, science fiction
Facts: Wikidata (CC0), as of 2026-07-09
George Orwell finished Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1948 while seriously ill on the Scottish island of Jura, reportedly reversing the year's digits for his title. Its vocabulary -- Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, 'two plus two make four' as the last free arithmetic -- has passed so completely into political language that the book is now quoted by every side of most arguments, a fate Orwell himself predicted for political speech.
It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
George Orwell
You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
George Orwell