Animal Farm Pride Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

The animals decided unanimously to create a military decoration, "Animal Hero, First Class," which was conferred there and then on Snowball and Boxer. It consisted of a brass medal (they were really some old horse-brasses which had been found in the harness-room), to be worn on Sundays and holidays. There was also "Animal Hero, Second Class," which was conferred posthumously on the dead sheep. (4.16)

We're on shakier territory with taking pride in violent military action and sacrifice, but it still seem to be working for a common good: if the animals take pride in their shared goal of running a working farm, then they don't mind a few dead sheep here or there. (Less bleating.)

Quote #5

The animals huddled about Clover, not speaking. The knoll where they were lying gave them a wide prospect across the countryside. Most of Animal Farm was within their view—the long pasture stretching down to the main road, the hayfield, the spinney, the drinking pool, the ploughed fields where the young wheat was thick and green, and the red roofs of the farm buildings with the smoke curling from the chimneys. It was a clear spring evening. The grass and the bursting hedges were gilded by the level rays of the sun. Never had the farm—and with a kind of surprise they remembered that it was their own farm, every inch of it their own property—appeared to the animals so desirable a place. (7.30)

We're going to go out on a limb and guess that very few of you reading this are homeowners, but take it from old Shmoop: when you have to buy your own toilet, you take a lot more pride in scrubbing the bowl.

Quote #6

In the autumn, by a tremendous, exhausting effort—for the harvest had to be gathered at almost the same time– the windmill was finished. The machinery had still to be installed, and Whymper was negotiating the purchase of it, but the structure was completed. In the teeth of every difficulty, in spite of inexperience, of primitive implements, of bad luck and of Snowball's treachery, the work had been finished punctually to the very day! Tired out but proud, the animals walked round and round their masterpiece, which appeared even more beautiful in their eyes than when it had been built the first time. Moreover, the walls were twice as thick as before. Nothing short of explosives would lay them low this time! 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. (8.10)

Aw. This is actually kind of sad. The poor animals are so proud of their windmill, and it's just going to be destroyed. But while it lasts, it gives them one more reason for them to take pride in their collectivity.