Who really said it

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act

Q: Did George Orwell say "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act"?

No. It appears in no essay, novel, letter, column or broadcast of Orwell's. His biographer Dorian Lynskey has said he read every word Orwell wrote and never encountered it, and the Orwell Society states flatly that he did not say it. The earliest attribution we can date is 1982 — thirty-two years after Orwell died — where it appears as an epigraph in someone else's book, and without the word 'universal.'

Not Orwell — origin unknown Unknown first attributed to Orwell in 1982

Disputed Rights unconfirmed

It appears in no essay, novel, letter, column or broadcast of Orwell’s. His biographer Dorian Lynskey has said he read every word Orwell wrote and never encountered it, and the Orwell Society states flatly that he did not say it. The earliest attribution we can date is 1982 — thirty-two years after Orwell died — where it appears as an epigraph in someone else’s book, and without the word ‘universal.’

Last verified 20 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act” At any given moment there is an orthodoxy… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. —George Orwell, "The Freedom of the Press" (1945). The popular "universal deceit" line is not his.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to George Orwell. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

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Provenance

What Orwell actually wrote

Orwell source: None — denied by the Orwell Society
Earliest Orwell attribution: 1982, as an epigraph — without ‘universal’
‘Universal’ form: 1982–84, sources disagree on the year
The real Orwell line: ‘The Freedom of the Press’ (written 1945)

At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. The real Orwell line

From ‘The Freedom of the Press,’ the preface Orwell wrote for Animal Farm and did not publish. If you want Orwell on truth-telling against the consensus, this is the sourced passage — and it is sharper than the fake.

Quote Investigator — the chronology of a fake

How we traced it

There is no source. The Orwell Society’s own quotations page lists it among things Orwell did not say, and his biographer Dorian Lynskey — who read the complete works for The Ministry of Truth — reports never encountering it Orwell Society ↗.
The earliest datable attribution to Orwell is 1982, as an epigraph in V. G. Venturini’s Partners in Ecocide — and notably without ‘universal’: ‘In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.’ The now-standard wording with ‘universal’ appears in a Canadian science periodical, dated 1982 by one source and 1984 by another; we report the range rather than pick Quote Investigator ↗.
Similar sentiments do exist — Jean Jaurès in 1898 on the Dreyfus affair, Gramsci in 1919 — but there is no transmission path to Orwell: the cumulative index to his Complete Works contains no reference to Jaurès or the Dreyfus affair at all fact-check ↗.

The circulating sentence has no identified author, so there is nobody to credit and no rights holder to clear — it simply should not be presented as Orwell’s. For the genuine passage: Orwell died in 1950, so his work entered the public domain in the UK and EU on 1 January 2021, but US status varies by work and several major works remain protected there. ‘The Freedom of the Press’ was first published in 1972 and carries its own US term, so quote it as a short cited excerpt. This is not legal advice.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

This is the most-repeated fake Orwell quotation in existence, and unusually for a misattribution, the people best placed to know have said so on the record.

Not George Orwell denied by the Orwell Society

It appears nowhere in his published work or papers. The Orwell Society lists it among sayings he did not produce, and his biographer, having read the complete works, reports never finding it the society ↗.

‘universal’ added later

The earliest Orwell-credited form (1982) reads ‘In a time of deceit’ — no ‘universal.’ The intensifier arrives afterwards, along with variants ‘during times of’ and ‘in an age of.’ Even the fake has drifted chronology ↗.

Jaurès, Gramsci no path to Orwell

Jean Jaurès (1898) and Antonio Gramsci (1919) wrote genuinely similar things, and it is tempting to call one of them the source. But the index to Orwell’s Complete Works contains no reference to Jaurès or the Dreyfus affair — there is no route from them to him.

Not Orwell, and not sourced to anyone. First attributed to him in 1982, without ‘universal’; the Orwell Society and his biographer both reject it full chronology ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It flatters the speaker. Saying it casts you as the truth-teller and the surrounding world as the deceit — which is why it appears on protest placards of every political direction, often aimed at each other, and why nobody who uses it stops to ask for a citation.

The real Orwell passage is less comfortable. He describes orthodoxy as something enforced not by censors but by the general assumption that decent people already agree — and notes that the silencing works without anyone having to forbid anything.

The Orwell Society keeps a list of things he never said. This is on it.

The genuine alternatives

‘The Freedom of the Press’ (1945): ‘At any given moment there is an orthodoxy… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness.’

Same essay: ‘It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it… A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing.’

The fake, earliest form (1982): ‘In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.’

The fake, standard form: ‘universal’ inserted; also ‘during times of’ and ‘in an age of.’

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Courage

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

In a Time of Universal Deceit — the chronologyquoteinvestigator.com

The 1982 epigraph, the ‘universal’ variant, and the Jaurès and Gramsci precursors that are not Orwell.

The Orwell Society — quotationsorwellsociety.com

The society’s own list of things Orwell did not say — this line included.

Fact check: did Orwell say it?checkyourfact.com

Corpus search plus statements from Dorian Lynskey and the Orwell Society.

George Orwell — Wikiquote (disputed)en.wikiquote.org

Where the line sits among the disputed attributions, with its citation history.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Orwell

George Orwell

1903–1950 · English novelist, essayist and journalist

George Orwell (1903–1950) wrote Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four and became the twentieth century’s standard authority on political lying — which makes him the perfect host for invented aphorisms about truth. A line needs only to sound like something the author of ‘Politics and the English Language’ might have written, and it acquires his name. This is the most widely circulated example, and he had nothing to do with it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Orwell, George. “The Freedom of the Press.” Unused preface to Animal Farm, written 1945; first published in The Times Literary Supplement, 15 September 1972.

MLA (9th ed.)

Orwell, George. “The Freedom of the Press.” The Times Literary Supplement, 15 Sept. 1972. Written 1945.

APA (7th ed.)

Orwell, G. (1972, September 15). The freedom of the press. The Times Literary Supplement. (Written 1945)

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act’?” Last verified 20 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/in-a-time-of-universal-deceit-telling-the-truth-is-a