“There are occasions when it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all.”

“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”

“War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.”

“It struck him that in moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy, but always against one’s own body... On the battlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that you are fighting for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it fills the universe, and even when you are not paralysed by fright or screaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggle against hunger or cold or sleeplessness, against a sour stomach or an aching tooth.”

“In moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy but always against one's own body.”

“If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them.”

“Four legs good, two legs better! All Animals Are Equal. But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.”