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.

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.

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.

Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.

I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.