We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.

Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.

Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me: There lie they, and here lie we Under the spreading chestnut tree.

When I joined the militia I had promised myself to kill one Fascist - after all, if each of us killed one they would soon be extinct.

The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of all the bad and good bad books, create in one's mind a sort of false map of the world, a series of fabulous countries into which one can retreat at odd moments throughout the rest of life, and which in some cases can survive a visit to the real countries which they are supposed to represent.

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

The pleasures of spring are available to everybody and cost nothing.