William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is one of the 20th century’s most significant novels. Following a plane crash, a group of British schoolboys find themselves alone on a desolate island, and set out to form a new society. One of the boys, Ralph, is chosen as the leader–but soon, his rival, Jack, attempts to persuade the boys to follow him. Another boy, Simon, serves as the voice of morality for both sides. Ralph’s most loyal friend, Piggy, acts as the intellectual antithesis of Jack’s savagery. Without adult supervision, though, their civilization quickly crumbles, and the boys fall into brutal violence.
Though written in the 1950s, the depiction of societal breakdown in Lord of the Flies remains just as chilling today. The complex but flawed characters represent the fragility of social order and the ever-present possibility for evil in human beings. Golding's work is a profound study of humanity’s susceptibility to chaos.
Here are 30+ of the most important quotes from Lord of the Flies that reveal the darkness of human nature.
The best Lord of the Flies quotes about evil and brutality
“Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close!”
“Maybe there is a beast… Maybe it's only us.”
“The beast was harmless and horrible.”
“Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”
“They understood only too well the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint brought.”
“What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?”
“He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling.”
The best Lord of the Flies quotes about society and order
“We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages.”
“Which is better–to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?”
“Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.”
“Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law.”
“Bollocks to the rules!”
The best Lord of the Flies quotes about knowledge and choice
“I believe man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature.”
“There have been so many interpretations of the story that I'm not going to choose between them. Make your own choice.“
“The only choice that really matters, the only interpretation of the story, if you want one, is your own. Not your teacher's, not your professor's, not mine, not a critic's, not some authority's.”
“The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.”
“The greatest ideas are the simplest.”
“He wanted to explain how people were never quite what you thought they were.”
The best Lord of the Flies quotes about loss of innocence
“He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again.”
“He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent watching one's feet.”
"We'll be like animals. We'll never be rescued."
“Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”
The best Lord of The Flies quotes about fear
“I'm frightened. Of us.”
“He forgot his wounds, his hunger and thirst, and became fear; hopeless fear.”
“Fear can't hurt you any more than a dream.”
“What does that mean but nightmares?”
“If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he's all right really, an' then when you see him again, it's like asthma an' you can't breathe.”
“Daylight might have answered yes; but darkness and the horrors of death said no.”
“The derisive laughter that rose had fear in it and condemnation.”
“Of course we’re frightened sometimes but we put up with being frightened.”
“We've got to talk about this fear and decide there's nothing in it.”
“Their fear had turned them into monsters.”
