... what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be told truthfully.

News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising.

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.

Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.

The Communism of the English intellectual is something explicable enough. It is the patriotism of the deracinated.

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