← For myself I do not grumble, for I am one of the lucky ones. I am twelve years old and have had over four hundred children. 🔊
← When Mr. Jones got back he immediately went to sleep on the drawing−room sofa with the News of the World over his face, so that when evening came, the animals were still unfed. 🔊
← She would vanish for hours on end, and then reappear at meal−times, or in the evening after work was over, as though nothing had happened. 🔊
← The whole thing would be over in a fortnight, they said. They put it about that the animals on the Manor Farm (they insisted on calling it the Manor Farm; they would not tolerate the name "Animal Farm") were perpetually fighting among themselves and were also rapidly starving to death. 🔊
← As the human beings approached the farm buildings, Snowball launched his first attack. All the pigeons, to the number of thirty−five, flew to and fro over the men's heads and muted upon them from mid−air; and while the men were dealing with this, the geese, who had been hiding behind the hedge, rushed out and pecked viciously at the calves of their legs. 🔊
← All the men were gone except one. Back in the yard Boxer was pawing with his hoof at the stable−lad who lay face down in the mud, trying to turn him over. 🔊
← "Mollie," she said, "I have something very serious to say to you. This morning I saw you looking over the hedge that divides Animal Farm from Foxwood. 🔊
← A thought struck Clover. Without saying anything to the others, she went to Mollie's stall and turned over the straw with her hoof. 🔊
← But of all their controversies, none was so bitter as the one that took place over the windmill. 🔊
← Apart from the disputes over the windmill, there was the question of the defence of the farm. 🔊
← They were unnecessary, he said, and wasted time. In future all questions relating to the working of the farm would be settled by a special committee of pigs, presided over by himself. 🔊
← 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." 🔊
← Huge boulders, far too big to be used as they were, were lying all over the bed of the quarry. 🔊
← Without any further prompting they confessed that they had been secretly in touch with Snowball ever since his expulsion, that they had collaborated with him in destroying the windmill, and that they had entered into an agreement with him to hand over Animal Farm to Mr. Frederick. 🔊
← The three hens who had been the ringleaders in the attempted rebellion over the eggs now came forward and stated that Snowball had appeared to them in a dream and incited them to disobey Napoleon's orders. 🔊
← When it was all over, the remaining animals, except for the pigs and dogs, crept away in a body. 🔊
← The other animals sitting round her took it up, and they sang it three times over−very tunefully, but slowly and mournfully, in a way they had never sung it before. 🔊
← But in the morning a deep silence hung over the farmhouse. Not a pig appeared to be stirring. 🔊
← But a few days later Muriel, reading over the Seven Commandments to herself, noticed that there was yet another of them which the animals had remembered wrong. 🔊
← A deputation of neighbouring farmers had been invited to make a tour of inspection. They were shown all over the farm, and expressed great admiration for everything they saw, especially the windmill. 🔊