George Orwell Quotes on Society & Civilization (5 Quotes)

Throughout recorded time... there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other. The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable.

Most revolutionaries are potential Tories, because they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of society once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any other.

Society has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim -- for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittenly conscious of anything outside their daily lives -- is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.