We have become too civilised to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don’t take the sword perish by smelly diseases.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]

Essay (1942-08), “Looking Back on the Spanish War, ch. 1, New Road (1943-06)
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