← "Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? 🔊
← Last night, however, it came back to me in my dream. And what is more, the words of the song also came back−words, I am certain, which were sung by the animals of long ago and have been lost to memory for generations. 🔊
← And so, almost before they knew what was happening, the Rebellion had been successfully carried through: Jones was expelled, and the Manor Farm was theirs. 🔊
← "What is going to happen to all that milk?" said someone. "Jones used sometimes to mix some of it in our mash," said one of the hens. 🔊
← 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. 🔊
← There was much discussion as to what the battle should be called. In the end, it was named the Battle of the Cowshed, since that was where the ambush had been sprung. 🔊
← What does that mean, Mollie?" "He didn't! I wasn't! It isn't true!" 🔊
← As usual, Snowball and Napoleon were in disagreement. According to Napoleon, what the animals must do was to procure firearms and train themselves in the use of them. 🔊
← But we were wrong, comrades. Do you know what the real reason was? Snowball was in league with Jones from the very start! 🔊
← "What he has done since is different. But I believe that at the Battle of the Cowshed he was a good comrade." 🔊
← 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. 🔊
← And when they thought of how they had laboured, what discouragements they had overcome, and the enormous difference that would be made in their lives when the sails were turning and the dynamos running−when they thought of all this, their tiredness forsook them and they gambolled round and round the windmill, uttering cries of triumph. 🔊
← But for the first time it occurred to him that he was eleven years old and that perhaps his great muscles were not quite what they had once been. 🔊
← So that, what with the songs, the processions, Squealer's lists of figures, the thunder of the gun, the crowing of the cockerel, and the fluttering of the flag, they were able to forget that their bellies were empty, at least part of the time. 🔊
← In nothing that he said or did was there any sign that his strength was not what it had been. 🔊
← "Fools! Do you not see what is written on the side of that van?" That gave the animals pause, and there was a hush. 🔊
← Then they saw what Clover had seen. It was a pig walking on his hind legs. 🔊
← What could be happening in there, now that for the first time animals and human beings were meeting on terms of equality? 🔊
← Some of them had five chins, some had four, some had three. But what was it that seemed to be melting and changing? 🔊
← Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. 🔊