The Lion and the Unicorn Quotes

“As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.
They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are ‘only doing their duty’, as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any the worse for it. He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil.”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“Literature, especially poetry, and lyric poetry most of all, is a kind of family joke, with little or no value outside its own language-group.”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“Pacifism is a psychological curiosity rather than a political movement. Some of the extremer pacifists, starting out with a complete renunciation of violence, have ended by warmly championing Hitler and even toying with antisemitism. This is interesting, but it is not important. ‘Pure’ pacifism, which is a by-product of naval power, can only appeal to people in very sheltered positions. Moreover, being negative and irresponsible, it does not inspire much devotion.”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not.”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“The English will never develop into a nation of philosophers. They will always prefer instinct to logic and character to intelligence. But they must get rid of their downright contempt for 'cleverness'. They cannot afford it any longer. They must grow less tolerant of ugliness, and mentally more adventurous. And they must stop despising foreigners. They are Europeans and ought to be aware of it.”
― George Orwell, The Lion and The Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“War, for all its evil, is at any rate an unanswerable test of strength, like a try-your-grip machine. Great strength returns the penny, and there is no way of faking the result.”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“These people will get their chance not in the moment of defeat but in some stagnant period when boredom is reinforced by discontent. They will not talk about surrender, only about peace;”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“Hitler's real self is in Mein Kampf, and in his actions. He has never persecuted the rich, except when they were Jews or when they tried actively to oppose him. He stands for a centralized economy which robs the capitalist of most of his power but leaves the structure of society much as before. The State controls industry, but there are still rich and poor, masters and men. Therefore, as against genuine Socialism, the moneyed class have always been on his side.”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“The most stirring battle-poem in English is about a brigade of cavalry which charged in the wrong direction.”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“If the thing we are fighting for is altogether destroyed, it will have been destroyed partly by our own act”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in 'the law' as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.
It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not.
[…]
The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root.
[…]
An illusion can become a half-truth, a mask can alter the expression of a face.
[…]
Even hypocrisy is a powerful safeguard. The hanging judge, that evil old man in scarlet robe and horse-hair wig, whom nothing short of dynamite will ever teach what century he is living in, but who will at any rate interpret the law according to the books and will in no circumstances take a money bribe, is one of the symbolic figures of England. He is a symbol of the strange mixture of reality and illusion, democracy and privilege, humbug and decency, the subtle network of the subtle network of compromises, by which the nation keeps itself in its familiar shape.”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

“From the moment that all productive goods have been declared the property of the State, the common people will feel, as they cannot feel now, that the State is themselves. They will be ready then to endure the sacrifices that are ahead of us, war or no war.”
― George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius