Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

The cat joined the Re-education Committee and was very active in it for some days. She was seen one dag sitting on a roof and talking to some sparrows who were just out of her reach. She was telling them that all animals were now comrades and that any sparrow who chose could come and perch on her paw; but the sparrows kept their distance.

A humanitarian is always a hypocrite.

That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.

Snobbishness, like hypocrisy, is a check upon behaviour whose value from a social point of view has been underrated.

Pessimism is reactionary because it makes the very idea of improving the world impossible.