Quotes by George Woodcock

Structures are fine as long as they are controlled by the people who actually work within the structures, but they're dicey even there.

We don't allow people to be knights, to be knighted by the Queen of England, but we do allow them to become members of the Order of Canada.

I suppose, a person for whom freedom is the most important thing - intellectual freedom and, as far as possible, physical freedom.

You can be bound by physical things, as I am by certain sicknesses, but nevertheless you can still be free to recognize that all initiatives really come from yourself if you don't depend upon structures of government or structures of any kind.

They decided that unpaid leave could only be granted through the decision of a council that consisted almost entirely of scientists who couldn't understand my reasons for wanting to go so. They said no, no unpaid. So I immediately resigned.

Orwell was the sort of man who was full of grievances. He was very loyal. Once he got to know you, he was extremely loyal. He hated passionately and irrationally.

I was editing Canadian Literature. I didn't want to let Canadian Literature go, so they reached a nice compromise by which I received half a professor's salary.

I suppose I'm led to do so by the fact of what happened to my contemporaries - people whom I've admired, people who I thought were ten times better than me when I was in my twenties and early thirties. I may have been right.

When you act dramatically in that way it often has a consequence that is very negative.

My split with the university was over the fact that I had become involved with helping Tibetans in India.