16 quotes
England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
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)
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)
The lady in the Rolls-Royce car is more damaging to morale than a fleet of Göring’s bombing planes.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
At normal times it is deeply dishonest. All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
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)
In the France of the Third Republic all but a very few of the newspapers could notoriously be bought over the counter like so many pounds of cheese.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
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)
The policeman who arrests the "Red" does not understand the theories the "Red" is preaching; if he did, his own position as bodyguard of the monied class might seem less pleasant to him.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
The gentleness of the English civilisation is perhaps its most marked characteristic. You notice it the instant you set foot on English soil. It is a land where the bus conductors are good-tempered and the policemen carry no revolvers.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
Thereupon the people picked a leader nearer to their mood, Churchill, who was at any rate able to grasp that wars are not won without fighting. Later, perhaps, they will pick another leader who can grasp that only Socialist nations can fight effectively.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
The British ruling class were not altogether wrong in thinking that Fascism was on their side. It is a fact that any rich man, unless he is a Jew, has less to fear from Fascism than from either Communism or democratic Socialism. One ought never to forget this, for nearly the whole of German and Italian propaganda is designed to cover it up.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
A navy employs comparatively few people, and it is an external weapon which cannot affect home politics directly. Military dictatorships exist everywhere, but there is no such thing as a naval dictatorship. What English people of nearly all classes loathe from the bottom of their hearts is the swaggering officer type, the jingle of spurs, and the crash of boots.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
Also, one must admit that the divisions between nation and nation are founded on real differences of outlook. Till recently it was thought proper to pretend that all human beings are very much alike, but in fact anyone able to use his eyes knows that the average of human behaviour differs enormously from country to country. Things that could happen in one country could not happen in another.
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)