# Quote — George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

> The typical Socialist is not, as tremulous old ladies imagine, a ferocious-looking working man with greasy overalls and a raucous voice. He is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years' time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism; or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting. This last type is surprisingly common in Socialist parties of every shade; it has perhaps been taken over en bloc from the old Liberal Party. In addition to this there is the horrible — the really disquieting — prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words "Socialism" and "Communism" draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, "Nature Cure" quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.

- 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/the-typical-socialist

## 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)