If one harbours anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible.
George OrwellRead
Bombing is not especially inhumane. War itself is inhumane and the bombing plane, which is used to paralyse industry and transport, is a relatively civilised weapon. 'Normal' or 'legitimate' warfare is just as destructive of inanimate objects and enormously so of human lives.
Interpretation
What this quote means
War is inherently inhumane, and bombing is merely one aspect of its brutality.
In this quote, George Orwell points out that the act of bombing in warfare is often viewed as particularly barbaric, yet he argues that all forms of warfare are equally inhumane. He suggests that the destruction and loss of life caused by war are the real atrocities, and that different weapons or methods of warfare should not distract us from the overall immorality of war itself.
Themes
WarInhumaneBombingViolenceDestructionHuman Life
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the ethics of warfare during a debate on military tactics.
More from George Orwell
All quotes →The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
George OrwellRead
Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.
George OrwellRead
Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.
George OrwellRead
As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.
George OrwellRead
It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.
George OrwellRead
Similar quotes
We should cast aside all childish games that fetter and exhaust body, speech and mind._x000D_ _x000D_ Stretching out in inconceivable nonaction, in the unstructured matrix, the actuality of emptiness, _x000D_ _x000D_ where the natural perfection of reality lies, we should gaze at the uncontrived sameness of every experience, _x000D_ _x000D_ all conditioning and ambition resolved with finality.
LongchenpaRead
Science regards man as an aggregation of atoms temporarily united by a mysterious force called the life-principle. To the materialist, the only difference between a living and a dead body is that in the one case that force is active, in the other latent.
Annie BesantRead
If that glad message of your Bible were written in your faces, you would not need to demand belief in the authority of that book in such stiff-necked fashion.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else.
C. S. LewisRead
We can't choose our fate, but we can choose others. Be careful in knowing that.
J. K. RowlingRead
Where Slavery is, there Liberty cannot be; and where Liberty is, there Slavery cannot be.
SukarnoRead