Our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major, who is a wise and persuasive pig, addresses the animals.
No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major, on the tyranny of man towards animals.
There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word – Man. Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major believes that man is totally to blame for all the animals’ ills.
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. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major tells the animals that humans force them to work and give away their produce. Not a pretty picture of animal life under Mr. Jones.
What then must we do? Why, work night and day, body and soul, for the overthrow of the human race! That is my message to you, comrades: Rebellion! – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major urges the animals to rise up against their human masters.
As for the dogs, when they grow old and toothless, Jones ties a brick round their necks and drowns them in the nearest pond. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major on how the cruel Mr. Jones drowns the dogs when they grow old instead of looking after them.
Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major suggests that humans cannot be trusted.
In Inequality Man serves the interests of no creature except himself. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major doesn’t sugarcoat it when he gives his opinion on the inequality between men and animals.
In Animals All men are enemies. All animals are comrades. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major.
Remember also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major’s ironic warning, which is ignored by Napoleon and his fellow pigs who become like humans at the end of the novel.
Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices. No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. All the habits of Man are evil. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major.
And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. Old Major.
Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland, Beasts of every land and clime, Hearken to my joyful tidings Of the golden future time. – George Orwell Animal Farm. Chapter 1. First verse of a song Old Major remembers his mother singing when he was young. He teaches it to the other animals and it becomes their anthem.
