Animal Farm: A Fairy Story

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. And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannize 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.

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE

EQUAL THAN OTHERS

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.

And yet, against their will, they had developed a certain respect for the efficiency with which the animals were managing their own affairs.

"I have no wish to take life, not even human life," repeated Boxer, and his eyes were full of tears.

"War is war. The only good human being is a dead one."

They could not understand, they said, how even animals could bring themselves to sing such contemptible rubbish.

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.

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.

We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty.