The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell 1903-1950 Quotes

“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.

(in "The Sporting Spirit", Tribune, GB, London, December 1945)”
― George Orwell, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell 1903-1950

“Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.”
― George Orwell, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell 1903-1950