"Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
— George Orwell
Every Generation Imagines Itself To Be
Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
About this quote
Orwell wrote this observation in a review of Herbert Read's A Coat of Many Colours, published in Poetry Quarterly in Winter 1945. It reflects his characteristic skepticism about intellectual generational pride — a theme he returned to often, suspicious of any group that claimed special wisdom or moral superiority. The review appeared during the final years of Orwell's life, a period when he was simultaneously completing Nineteen Eighty-Four and writing some of his most incisive literary criticism.
Source
Review of A Coat of Many Colours by Herbert Read, Poetry Quarterly, 1945
