Explanation

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.George Orwell's fable of revolutionary farm animals - the steadfast horses Boxer and Clover, the opportunistic pigs Snowball and Napoleon, and the deafening choir of sheep - who overthrow their elitist human master only to find themselves subject to a new authority, is one of the most famous warnings ever written. Rejected by such eminent publishing figures as Victor Gollancz, Jonathan Cape and T.S. Eliot due to its daringly open criticism of Stalin, Animal Farm was published to great acclaim by Martin Secker and Warburg on 17 August 1945. One reviewer wrote 'In a hundred years' time perhaps Animal Farm ... may simply be a fairy story- today it is a fairy story with a good deal of point.' Seventy-five years since its first publication, Orwell's immortal satire remains an unparalleled masterpiece and more relevant than ever.The Authoritative Text. With an introduction by Christopher Hitchens.*This stunning edition of Animal Farm features period artwork by Elizabeth Friedlander, one of Europe's pre-eminent 20th-century graphic designers. Look out for complementary editions of Orwell's essential works Nineteen Eighty-Four and Down and Out in Paris and London.*

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quotes (23)
Writer

George Orwell

Language

English

ISBN

9781787302525

Number of pages

128

Publisher

Random House UK

Category

Animal Farm - George Orwell

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”
“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”
“Let’s face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.”
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
“Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.”
He would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies.
Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure!
Can you not understand that liberty is worth more than just ribbons?
Windmill or no windmill, life would go on as it had always gone on - that is, badly.
I have no wish to take life, not even human life.
Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey.
No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?
Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.
This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.
Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever.
There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word-- Man.
The Seven Commandments: Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. No animal shall wear clothes. No animal shall sleep in a bed. No animal shall drink alcohol. No animal shall kill any other animal. All animals are equal.
All men are enemies. All animals are comrades.
The distinguishing mark of man is the hand, the instrument with which he does all his mischief.
His answer to every problem, every setback was “I will work harder!” —which he had adopted as his personal motto.
“Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments.”
They had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.