Although he was shot in the throat by a sniper in the Spanish civil war (while fighting for the republicans), George Orwell retained his courage -- and his principles.

Orwell later returned with his wife (and a grey poodle named Marx) to London. What prompted the move? The beginning of the Blitz in 1940. Why risk life and limb to face the Germans? It seemed wrong, he explained, "to leave when people are being bombed to hell."