Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull. - George Orwell

Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this test beggars fail, and for this they are despised. If one could earn even ten pounds a week at begging, it would become a respectable profession immediately. A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modem people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.

Quien con­tro­la el pa­sa­do — decía la con­sig­na del Par­ti­do — con­tro­la el fu­tu­ro. Quien con­tro­la el pre­sen­te con­tro­la el pa­sa­do

Mr Auden's brand of amoralism is only possible if you are the kind of person who is always somewhere else when the trigger is pulled. So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot.