I understand HOW. I do not understand WHY

Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.

A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.

I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

All that was required of them (i.e. the brain-washed masses) was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.

To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.

Power-worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.