Big Brother Is Watching/Quotes

"BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU"

- Nineteen Eighty-Four

"The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. 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."

- Nineteen Eighty-Four

"Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no difference. The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed -- would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper -- the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever."

- Nineteen Eighty-Four

"They live there in that great plascrete tower surrounded by walls and razor wire, only emerging to seize some unfortunate who has transgressed against the Imperial Laws or to patrol the city to prove that it belongs to them. There are crystal lenses and sound wave detectors on that tower that can watch citizens or listen to their conversations 100 leagues away. Imperial spy satellites watch what they can't see directly and even the Governor fears them. They aren't from here and have nothing to do with us, no more than Orks or Eldar, if they have families or children we don't know about them and we don't care. They wouldn't so much as buy a glowbulb from us and we wouldn't sell it to them. It's ironic that they have the rather benevolent title of Arbitrators."

- Vorkas Zolowski, prior to his arrest for pernicious sedition against the Emperor of Mankind, Warhammer 40,000

"THE EMPEROR KNOWS THE EMPEROR IS WATCHING"

- Warhammer 40,000

"Here in your mind you have complete privacy. Here there's no difference between what is and what could be."

- Chuck Palahniuk

"These walls are paper-thin and everyone hears every little sound. Everyone's a voyeur, it's them watching me watch them watch me right now. They're shaking hands, they're shaking in their shoes, oh Lord don't shake me down."

- Modest Mouse, "Paper Thin Walls"

"Welcome to your life There's no turning back Even while we sleep We will find you Acting on your best behaviour Turn your back on mother nature Everybody wants to rule the world"

- Everybody Wants to Rule The World, "Tears for Fears"

""Once the technical means of control have reached a certain size, a certain degree of being connected one to another then the chances of freedom are over for good. The word has ceased to have meaning." (emphasis as original)"

- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow seemingly predicting that the Internet and ever increasing amounts of cheap computer power would assist repression in a book published in 1973.

"Do not revile the king even in your thoughts, or curse the rich in your bedroom, because a bird of the air may carry your words, and a bird on the wing may report what you say."

- The Bible, Ecclesiastes 10:20 (New International Version)

"PINKIE PIE IS WATCHING YOU... FOREVER!"

- Ministry of Morale slogan, Fallout: Equestria