Animal Farm Squealer Quotes

THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

– George Orwell

Animal Farm. Chapter 2. The pigs reduced the principles of Animalism to Seven Commandment. These were inscribed on the wall in large white letters by Snowball with Squealer holding the paint-pot. They would form an unalterable law by which all animals on Animal Farm must live for ever after.

“Comrades!” he cried. “You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us.”

– George Orwell

Animal Farm. Chapter 3. Squealer explains why the pigs have to take all the milk and apples.

Afterwards Squealer made a round of the farm and set the animals’ minds at rest. He assured them that the resolution against engaging in trade and using money had never been passed, or even suggested. It was pure imagination, probably traceable in the beginning to lies circulated by Snowball. A few animals still felt faintly doubtful, but Squealer asked them shrewdly, ‘Are you certain that this is not something that you have dreamed, comrades? Have you any record of such a resolution? Is it written down anywhere?’ And since it was certainly true that nothing of the kind existed in writing, the animals were satisfied that they had been mistaken.

– George Orwell

Animal Farm. Chapter 6. Napoleon’s minister for propaganda, the silver-tongued Squealer, convinces the animals that a rule against trade with humans never existed. He scapegoats the expelled Snowball, whom he says spread the rumor and the lie.

A bed merely means a place to sleep in. A pile of straw in a stall is a bed, properly regarded. The rule was against sheets, which are a human invention…You would not rob us of our repose, would you, comrades? You would not have us too tired to carry out our duties? Surely none of you wishes to see Jones back?

– George Orwell

Animal Farm. Chapter 6. Napoleon’s mouthpiece Squealer, on the pigs’ taking up beds in the farmhouse. He uses his considerable persuasive skills to get the animals to excuse the first big change in the Commandments in Animal Farm.

At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paint-brush, and an overturned pot of white paint. The dogs immediately made a ring round Squealer, and escorted him back to the farmhouse as soon as he was able to walk. None of the animals could form any idea as to what this meant, except old Benjamin, who nodded his muzzle with a knowing air, and seemed to understand, but would say nothing.

– George Orwell

Animal Farm. Chapter 8. It is clear from this episode that Squealer has been changing the Seven Commandments. Evidence of the corruption in Napoleon’s and his second-in-command Squealer’s leadership. Benjamin, the long-lived donkey, is the only one who has figured this out.

Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones’s day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas.

– George Orwell

Animal Farm. Chapter 9. Squealer explains the “readjustment” of rations. Rations have been reduced again, except for the pigs and dogs.

And at the end, almost too weak to speak, he whispered in my ear that his sole sorrow was to have passed on before the windmill was finished. ‘Forward, comrades!’ he whispered. ‘Forward in the name of the Rebellion. Long live Animal Farm! Long live Comrade Napoleon! Napoleon is always right.’ Those were his very last words, comrades.

– George Orwell

Animal Farm. Chapter 9. Squealer tells the others that Boxer died peacefully in hospital, praising the glories of Animal Farm, and he at the great horse’s side. But in truth Boxer collapsed pulling stone for the windmill. His body was taken to a glue factory for slaughter in a factory van, as witnessed by Benjamin.
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