← Alone among the animals on the farm he never laughed. If asked why, he would say that he saw nothing to laugh at. 🔊
← They were so delighted with the song that they sang it right through five times in succession, and might have continued singing it all night if they had not been interrupted. 🔊
← Now if there was one thing that the animals were completely certain of, it was that they did not want Jones back. 🔊
← At the graveside Snowball made a little speech, emphasising the need for all animals to be ready to die for Animal Farm if need be. 🔊
← This arrangement would have worked well enough if it had not been for the disputes between Snowball and Napoleon. 🔊
← Napoleon, on the other hand, argued that the great need of the moment was to increase food production, and that if they wasted time on the windmill they would all starve to death. 🔊
← Boxer, who had now had time to think things over, voiced the general feeling by saying: "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right." 🔊
← If they had no more food than they had had in Jones's day, at least they did not have less. 🔊
← The needs of the windmill must override everything else, he said. He was therefore making arrangements to sell a stack of hay and part of the current year's wheat crop, and later on, if more money were needed, it would have to be made up by the sale of eggs, for which there was always a market in Willingdon. 🔊
← They would meet in the public−houses and prove to one another by means of diagrams that the windmill was bound to fall down, or that if it did stand up, then that it would never work. 🔊
← The animals carried on as best they could with the rebuilding of the windmill, well knowing that the outside world was watching them and that the envious human beings would rejoice and triumph if the mill were not finished on time. 🔊
← Whenever anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball. If a window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key of the store−shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well. 🔊
← And he very nearly succeeded−I will even say, comrades, he would have succeeded if it had not been for our heroic Leader, Comrade Napoleon. 🔊
← "Ah, that is different!" said Boxer. "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right." 🔊
← As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race. 🔊
← With tears in their eyes they asked one another what they should do if their Leader were taken away from them. 🔊
← But if there were hardships to be borne, they were partly offset by the fact that life nowadays had a greater dignity than it had had before. 🔊
← The sheep were the greatest devotees of the Spontaneous Demonstration, and if anyone complained (as a few animals sometimes did, when no pigs or dogs were near) that they wasted time and meant a lot of standing about in the cold, the sheep were sure to silence him with a tremendous bleating of "Four legs good, two legs bad!" 🔊
← Boxer professed not to be sorry for what had happened. If he made a good recovery, he might expect to live another three years, and he looked forward to the peaceful days that he would spend in the corner of the big pasture. 🔊
← If so, they would perhaps have noted that the white hoof and horn with which it had previously been marked had now been removed. 🔊