The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.

Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work.

History has to move in a certain direction, even if it has to be pushed that way by neurotics.

By revolution we become more ourselves, not less.

The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature.

A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things.

The truth, it is felt, becomes untruth when your enemy utters it.