Quotes from «Burmese Days» by George Orwell

-         No European cares anything about proofs. When a man has a black face, suspicion IS proof

-          It’s a tradition to booze together and swap meals and pretend to be friends, though we all hate each other like poison. Hanging together, we call it. It’s a political necessity. Of course drink is what keeps the machine going. We should all go mad and kill one another in a week if it weren’t for that. There’s a subject for one of your uplift essayists, doctor. Booze as the cement of empire

-         Why, of course, the lie that we’re here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of to rob them. I suppose it’s a natural enough lie. But it corrupts us, it corrupts us in ways you can’t imagine. There’s an everlasting sense of being a sneak and a liar that torments us and drives us to justify ourselves night and day. It’s at the bottom of half our beastliness to the natives. We Anglo-Indians could be almost bearable if we’d only admit that we’re thieves and go on thieving without any humbug

-         Some fool has said that one cannot hate an animal; he should try a few nights in India, when the dogs are baying the moon.

-         Beauty is meaningless until it is shared

-         Like a crocodile, he strikes always at the weakest spot