War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.

The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it.

When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic. Women face childbed and the scrubbing brush, revolutionaries keep their mouths shut in the torture chamber, battleships go down with their guns still firing when their decks are awash.

The words kept coming back to him, statement of a mystical truth and a palpable absurdity.

It had become usual to give Napoleon the Credit for every Successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, "Under the guidance of our leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days" or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, "thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!".

The most stirring battle-poem in English is about a brigade of cavalry which charged in the wrong direction.