George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] (1903-1950)
British writer

No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid.... Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.
-- George Orwell, "Reflections on Gandhi," in Shooting an Elephant (1950), quoted from James A Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief

One must choose between God and Man, and all "radicals" and "progressives", from the mildest liberal to the most extreme anarchist, have in effect chosen Man.
-- George Orwell, Orwell Reader

He was an embittered atheist the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.
-- George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), quoted from Encarta® Book of Quotations (2000)

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.
-- George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, ch. 11 (1937), quoted from The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, also in Encarta® Book of Quotations (2000) p. 712

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.
-- George Orwell, Reflections on Gandhi (1949), quoted from Jonathon Green, The Cassell Dictionary of Cynical Quotations

One defeats a fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one’s intelligence.
-- George Orwell, (1949), quoted from Laird Wilcox, ed., "The Degeneration of Belief"

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?
-- George Orwell: Winston Smith, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, pt. 3, ch. 3 (1949), speaking of O'Brien, quoted from The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations

Creeds like pacifism or anarchism, which seem on the surface to imply a complete renunciation of power, rather encourage this habit of mind. For if you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics ... the more you are in the right (and) everybody else should be bullied into thinking otherwise.
-- George Orwell, The Road To Wigan Pier, quoted from Laird Wilcox, ed., "The Degeneration of Belief"

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
-- George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945), quoted from Laird Wilcox, ed., "The Degeneration of Belief"

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
-- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), quoted from Encarta® Book of Quotations (2000)