How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar. (1.4.25)
The Party sometimes creates new identities of persons who never existed in order to further its ends. Once that act of creation has been forgotten, such persons seemingly exist just as authentically as real individuals.
Quote #11
Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved. The Party claimed, for example, that today 40 per cent of adult proles were literate: before the Revolution, it was said, the number had only been 15 per cent. The Party claimed that the infant mortality rate was now only 160 per thousand, whereas before the Revolution it had been 300 – and so it went on. It was like a single equation with two unknowns. It might very well be that literally every word in the history books, even the things that one accepted without question, was pure fantasy. For all he knew there might never have been any such law as the jus primae noctis, or any such creature as a capitalist, or any such garment as a top hat. (1.7.10)
The Party’s control of information and records is so extensive that it is impossible to prove or disprove anything it claims.
Quote #12
Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. Just once in his life he had possessed – after the event: that was what counted – concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of falsification. He had held it between his fingers for as long as thirty seconds. (1.7.11)
Winston feels confident that, despite the Party’s control of information, he alone had possession of evidence to prove the Party’s wrong – at least in his memory.