15 quotes
Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception.
Notes on Nationalism (1945)
Everyone always did miss everyone else in this war, whenever it was humanly possible to do so.
Homage to Catalonia (1938)
The essential job is to get people to recognise war propaganda when they see it, especially when it is disguised as peace propaganda.
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)
Having defeated your enemy you have to choose (unless you want another war within a generation) between exterminating him and treating him generously.
As I Please (1943)
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
But it takes a war to make map-reading popular.
As I Please (1943)
I think the pacifists might find it helpful to illustrate their pamphlets with enlarged photographs of lice. Glory of war, indeed!
Homage to Catalonia (1938)
War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
Every war, when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defence against a homicidal maniac.
War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism.
Notes on Nationalism (1945)
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.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.
Notes on Nationalism (1945)
No one is patriotic about taxes.