What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.

I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment.

We may be together for another six months—a year—there’s no knowing. At the end we’re certain to be apart. Do you realize how utterly alone we shall be?

Let's face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.

Within any important issue, there are always aspects no one wishes to discuss.

To do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. There was a word for it in Newspeak: ownlife.

Preventive war is a crime not easily committed by a country that retains any traces of democracy.