← I have had a long life, I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in my stall, and I think I may say that I understand the nature of life on this earth as well as any animal now living. 🔊
← I will sing you that song now, comrades. I am old and my voice is hoarse, but when I have taught you the tune, you can sing it better for yourselves. 🔊
← The harness−room at the end of the stables was broken open; the bits, the nose−rings, the dog−chains, the cruel knives with which Mr. Jones had been used to castrate the pigs and lambs, were all flung down the well. 🔊
← As for the horses, they knew every inch of the field, and in fact understood the business of mowing and raking far better than Jones and his men had ever done. 🔊
← As for the pigs, they could already read and write perfectly. The dogs learned to read fairly well, but were not interested in reading anything except the Seven Commandments. 🔊
← Muriel, the goat, could read somewhat better than the dogs, and sometimes used to read to the others in the evenings from scraps of newspaper which she found on the rubbish heap. 🔊
← This was just what Snowball had intended. As soon as they were well inside the yard, the three horses, the three cows, and the rest of the pigs, who had been lying in ambush in the cowshed, suddenly emerged in their rear, cutting them off. 🔊
← This arrangement would have worked well enough if it had not been for the disputes between Snowball and Napoleon. 🔊
← 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 that 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. 🔊
← Throughout the spring and summer they worked a sixty−hour week, and in August Napoleon announced that there would be work on Sunday afternoons as well. 🔊
← The advantage of only having to feed themselves, and not having to support five extravagant human beings as well, was so great that it would have taken a lot of failures to outweigh it. 🔊
← 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. 🔊
← It was well seasoned, and Whymper had advised Napoleon to sell it; both Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick were anxious to buy it. 🔊
← 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. 🔊
← There were times when it seemed to the animals that they worked longer hours and fed no better than they had done in Jones's day. 🔊
← It was also announced that the gun would be fired every year on Napoleon's birthday, as well as on the other two anniversaries. 🔊
← By the evening, however, Napoleon appeared to be somewhat better, and the following morning Squealer was able to tell them that he was well on the way to recovery. 🔊
← Napoleon ended his speech with a reminder of Boxer's two favourite maxims, "I will work harder" and "Comrade Napoleon is always right"−maxims, he said, which every animal would do well to adopt as his own. 🔊
← The farm was more prosperous now, and better organised: it had even been enlarged by two fields which had been bought from Mr. Pilkington. 🔊
← Some did it better than others, one or two were even a trifle unsteady and looked as though they would have liked the support of a stick, but every one of them made his way right round the yard successfully. 🔊