Life & Wisdom Quote by George Orwell

Orwell skewers the comforting myth that people are either virtuous or wicked. His line lands because it treats morality less like a halo and more like a thermostat: most of us prefer a setting that feels decent, socially legible, and low-effort. "On the whole" is doing quiet, cynical work, draining heroism from the picture and replacing it with statistical, shrug-level ethics. The sting is in the hedges: "but not too good" and "not quite all the time". Orwell implies that goodness, taken seriously, makes demands. It costs money, status, pleasure, and sometimes belonging. So we bargain with it.

The subtext is political as much as personal. Orwell wrote in the shadow of mass propaganda, war, and ideological pageantry - moments when societies loudly perform moral certainty while privately protecting comfort and self-interest. He distrusted purity campaigns and moral grandstanding because they offer a cheat code: announce righteousness, then permit yourself the ordinary exemptions. The "not too good" reads like a jab at the respectable classes who enjoy thinking of themselves as humane, as long as that humanity doesn't reorganize their lives or threaten their privileges.

What makes the sentence work is its conversational plainness masking a hard diagnosis. Orwell doesn't accuse; he observes. That restraint forces recognition: the real target isn't villains, it's the everyday compromise - the moral weekend warrior who wants to feel good without becoming good in ways that would actually change anything.