# Quote — George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

> Columbus sailed the Atlantic, the first steam engines tottered into motion, the British squares stood firm under the French guns at Waterloo, the one-eyed scoundrels of the nineteenth century praised God and filled their pockets; and this is where it all led to — to labyrinthine slums and dark back kitchens with sickly, ageing people creeping round and round them like blackbeetles.

- Author: [George Orwell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell.md)
- Book: [The Road to Wigan Pier](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/the-road-to-wigan-pier.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/the-road-to-wigan-pier/columbus-sailed-the

## More from this book

> We spend our lives in abusing England but grow very angry when we hear a foreigner saying exactly the same things.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/the-road-to-wigan-pier/we-spend-our.md)

> The modern English literary world, at any rate the high-brow section of it, is a sort of poisonous jungle where only weeds can flourish.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/the-road-to-wigan-pier/the-modern-english.md)

> Tea, the Englishman's opium.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/the-road-to-wigan-pier/tea-the-englishmans.md)