'Animal Farm' Quotes

Quotes from 'Animal Farm,' George Orwell's Famous & Controversial Novel

"Animal Farm" by George Orwell cover art.

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George Orwell's influential, allegorical novel Animal Farm was published in 1945. In the novel, the overworked and mistreated animals on a farm all begin to follow the precepts of Animalism, rise up against the humans, take over the farm, and rename the place: Animal Farm. Here are a few quotes from this famous work.

  • "All men are enemies. All animals are comrades."
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 1
  • "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, Ch. 2
  • "The animals were happy as they had never conceived it possible to be. Every mouthful of food was an acute positive pleasure, now that it was truly their own food, produced by themselves and for themselves, not doled out to them by a grudging master."
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 3
  • "I will work harder!"
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 3
  • "FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD"
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 3
  • "It was given out that the animals there practiced cannibalism, tortured one another with red-hot horseshoes, and had their females in common. This was what came of rebelling against the laws of Nature, Frederick and Pilkington said."
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 4
  • "'I have no wish to take life, not even human life,' repeated Boxer, and his eyes were full of tears."
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 4
  • "Napoleon is always right."
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 5
  • "All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work; they grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything they did was for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind who would come after them, and not for a pack of idle, thieving human beings."
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 6
  • "The human beings did not hate Animal Farm any less now that it was prospering; indeed, they hated it more than ever."
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 6
  • "They were always cold, and usually hungry as well."
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 7
  • "If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak."
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 7
  • "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." Chapter 7
  • "Some of the animals remembered -- or thought they remembered -- that the Sixth Commandment decreed, 'No animal shall kill any other animal.' And though no one cared to mention it in the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, it was felt that the killings which had taken place did not square with this."
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 8
  • "Besides, in those days they had been slaves and now they were free, and that made all the difference, as Squealer did not fail to point out."
    - George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 9

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Lombardi, Esther. "'Animal Farm' Quotes." ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/animal-farm-quotes-738568. Lombardi, Esther. (2020, August 28). 'Animal Farm' Quotes. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/animal-farm-quotes-738568 Lombardi, Esther. "'Animal Farm' Quotes." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/animal-farm-quotes-738568 (accessed March 19, 2024).