Past Manipulation Quotes

The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existance, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it.

I fell victim to the temptation of every autobiographer, to the illusion that since the past exists only in one's memories and the words which strive vainly to encapsulate them, it is possible to create past events simply by saying they occurred.

I think there's something inherently dishonest in trying to go back and mess with the past.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

If only the sense of actuality can be lulled-and it sleeps for ever in most historians-there is no passion that cannot be gratified in the past.

Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history.

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.

Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.

Writing plays fast and loose with the past.

Too often the past has been twisted to fit the visions and agendas of the present.

Many try to force the past to change.

A man's memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interest in the present.