Quote 1
"What victory?" said Boxer. His knees were bleeding, he had lost a shoe and split his hoof, and a dozen pellets had lodged themselves in his hind leg.
"What victory, comrade? Have we not driven the enemy off our soil— the sacred soil of Animal Farm?"
"But they have destroyed the windmill. And we had worked on it for two years!"
"What matter? We will build another windmill. We will build six windmills if we feel like it. You do not appreciate, comrade, the mighty thing that we have done. The enemy was in occupation of this very ground that we stand upon. And now— thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon— we have won every inch of it back again!"
"Then we have won back what we had before," said Boxer.
"That is our victory," said Squealer. (8.26-8.33)
Squealer can make black into white, and he can also make "not being utterly destroyed" into "victory." But we still think that having to take our shoes off at the airport means that the terrorists have already won.
Quote 2
"He is dead," said Boxer sorrowfully. "I had no intention of doing that. I forgot that I was wearing iron shoes. Who will believe that I did not do this on purpose?" (4.10)
At least some of the violence is accidental: Boxer didn't mean to kill the stable-boy. But who's going to believe him? (Also—it's easy to believe that Boxer didn't mean to kill a boy; it's a lot harder to believe that Tsar Nicholas II and his kids weren't executed on purpose. That's kind of the definition of an execution.)
Quote 3
I do not understand it. I would not have believed that such things could happen on our farm. It must be due to some fault in ourselves. The solution, as I see it, is to work harder. From now onwards I shall get up a full hour earlier in the mornings. (7.28)
Poor Boxer. We feel sorry for him, but we also want to tell him not to be such a dummy. He's strong enough to overthrow the humans; he'd be strong enough to kick some pig butt, too. Unfortunately, once he gets an idea in his head—like, that he's better off after the revolution—he can't get it out.
Quote 4
In spite of the shock that Snowball's expulsion had given them, the animals were dismayed by this announcement. Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments. Even Boxer was vaguely troubled. He set his ears back, shook his forelock several times, and tried hard to marshal his thoughts; but in the end he could not think of anything to say. (5.17)
In the land of the dumb, the half-brained man (pig) is king: the pigs may not be mechanical (or agricultural) geniuses, but they're smarter than the rest of the animals. And, in the end, that's all that matters. So stay in school, Shmoopers!