313 quotes
In stationary warfare there are three things that all soldiers long for: a battle, more cigarettes, and a week's leave.
Homage to Catalonia (1938)
I have always thought there might be a lot of cash in starting a new religion.
This thought cheered Bozo, I do not know why. He was a very exceptional man.
Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
The most bitter insult one can offer to a Londoner is "bastard" — which, taken for what it means, is hardly an insult at all.
Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
How sweet the air does smell — even the air of a back-street in the suburbs — after the shut-in, subfaecal stench of the spike!
Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
The essential job is to get people to recognise war propaganda when they see it, especially when it is disguised as peace propaganda.
Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.
An earthquake is such fun when it is over.
Burmese Days (1934)
At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.
Beauty is meaningless until it is shared.
Burmese Days (1934)
Living a lie the whole time — the lie that we're here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of to rob them ... it corrupts us, it corrupts us in ways you can't imagine.
Burmese Days (1934)
Poverty is what I am writing about, and I had my first contact with poverty in this slum.
Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognizes the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
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.
Notes on Nationalism (1945)
Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
Socialism necessarily gives power to an inner ring of bureaucrats, who in almost every case will be men who want power for its own sake and will stick at nothing in order to retain it.
In nearly seventy pages, it is astonishing how little he says, and how impressively he says it.
This means no more than vae victis - woe to the creed that is not backed by machine-guns!
Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.