Hilaire Belloc

Loss and possession, death and life are one, There falls no shadow where there shines no sun.

— Hilaire Belloc

All men have an instinct for conflict: at least, all healthy men.

— Hilaire Belloc

From quiet homes and first beginning, out to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.

— Hilaire Belloc

When friendship disappears then there is a space left open to that awful loneliness of the outside world which is like the cold space between the planets. It is an air in which men perish utterly.

— Hilaire Belloc

Whatever happens, we have gotThe Maxim gun, and they have not.

— Hilaire Belloc

Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This [taking a rosary out of his pocket] is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative.

— Hilaire Belloc

Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have left the vulgar stuff alone.

— Hilaire Belloc

It is the best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them.

— Hilaire Belloc

It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation.

— Hilaire Belloc

I'm tired of Love; I'm still more tired of Rhyme.But money gives me pleasure all the time.

— Hilaire Belloc

How did the party go in Portman Square?Juliet was next me and I do not know.

— Hilaire Belloc

The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine — but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.

— Hilaire Belloc

I have wandered all my life, and I have also traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.

— Hilaire Belloc

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,Benedicamus Domino!

— Hilaire Belloc

It was my shame, and now it is my boast,That I have loved you rather more than most.

— Hilaire Belloc

The world is full of double bedsFor sodomy or self-abuse.

— Hilaire Belloc

[M]others of large families (who claim to common sense)Will find a Tiger well repay the trouble and expense.

— Hilaire Belloc

I shoot the HippopotamusHis hide is sure to flatten 'em.

— Hilaire Belloc

When people call this beast to mind,So LARGE a trunk before.

— Hilaire Belloc

What! Would you slap the Porcupine?Should turn Tupto-philist.

— Hilaire Belloc

The Llama is a wooly sort of fleecy hairy goat,Like an unsuccessful literary man.

— Hilaire Belloc

I'm tired of love; I'm still more tired of rhyme; but money gives me pleasure all the time.

— Hilaire Belloc

The Microbe is so very smallTo see him through a microscope.

— Hilaire Belloc

Oh! let us never, never doubtWhat nobody is sure about!

— Hilaire Belloc

'… and as to what may be in this book, do not feel timid nor hesitate to enter. There are more mountains than molehills …'

— Hilaire Belloc

Write as the wind blows and command all words like an army!

— Hilaire Belloc

Then let us love one another and laugh. Time passes, and we shall soon laugh no longer—and meanwhile common living is a burden, and earnest men are in siege upon us all around. Let us suffer absurdities, for this is only to suffer one another.

— Hilaire Belloc

Death […] people nowadays seem to regard as something odd, whereas it is well known to be the commonest thing in the world.

— Hilaire Belloc

Man may […] be master of his fate, but he has a precious poor servant. It is easier to command a lapdog or a mule for a whole day than one's own fate for half-an-hour.

— Hilaire Belloc

And what is there else but pleasure, and to what else does beauty move on?

— Hilaire Belloc

[A]lways keep a-hold of NurseFor fear of finding something worse

— Hilaire Belloc

Physicians of the Utmost Fame"There is no Cure for this Disease."

— Hilaire Belloc

Oh, my friends, be warned by me,Are all the Human Frame requires.

— Hilaire Belloc

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,The effort very nearly killed her.

— Hilaire Belloc

Of courtesy it is much lessThat the Grace of God is in courtesy.

— Hilaire Belloc

From quiet homes and first beginning,But laughter and the love of friends.

— Hilaire Belloc

The tender Evenlode that makesForgotten in the western wolds.

— Hilaire Belloc

Child! Do not throw this book about;Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.

— Hilaire Belloc

I said to Heart, "How goes it?" Heart replied:"Right as a Ribstone Pippin!" But it lied.

— Hilaire Belloc

[N]othing is worthwhile on this unhappy earth except the fulfilment of a man's desire.

— Hilaire Belloc

When friendship disappears then there is a space left open to that awful loneliness of the outside which is like the cold of space between the planets. It is an air in which men perish utterly. Absolute dereliction is the death of the soul.

— Hilaire Belloc

Now the Faith is old and the Devil is bold,But especially barley brew!

— Hilaire Belloc

Then he added, as men will who are of infinite imagination and crammed with desires, 'My wants are few.'

— Hilaire Belloc

May all good fellows that here agreeNoël! Noël!

— Hilaire Belloc

I recognised that I was (and I confessed) in that attitude of the mind wherein men admit mortality; something had already passed from me—I mean that fresh and vigorous morning of the eyes wherein the beauty of this land had been reflected as in a tiny mirror of burnished silver. Youth was gone out apart; it was loved and regretted, and therefore no longer possessed.

— Hilaire Belloc

I put my pencil upon the paper, doubtfully, and drew little lines, considering my theme. But I would not long hesitate in this manner, for I knew that all creation must be chaos first, and then gestures in the void before it can cast out the completed thing.

— Hilaire Belloc

The Economic definition of Wealth is subtle and diflicult to appreciate, but it is absolutely essential to our study to get it clear at the outset and keep it firmly in mind.

— Hilaire Belloc

It is this worth, that is, this ability to get other wealth in exchange, which constitutes true Economic Wealth.

— Hilaire Belloc

Wealth, for the purposes of economic study, is confined to those values attaching to material objects through the action of man, which values can be exchanged /or other values.

— Hilaire Belloc

The Science of Economics does not deal with true happiness nor even with well-being in material things. It deals with a strictly limited field of what is called "Economic Wealth," and if it goes outside its own boundaries it goes wrong.

— Hilaire Belloc

You shall receive me when the clouds are highAnd this is that in which I mean to die.

— Hilaire Belloc

When I am dead, I hope it may be said:'His sins were scarlet, But his books were read'.

— Hilaire Belloc

Of three in One and One in threeAnd all at once were Juliet.

— Hilaire Belloc

Here richly, with ridiculous display, I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

— Hilaire Belloc

The accursed power which stands on Privilege(Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne).

— Hilaire Belloc

I have noticed that this kind of fanatic, like every other kind, is in two species: the species which too clearly thinks out its own insane theory, and the species which remains perfectly muddle-headed.

— Hilaire Belloc

[P]rofessional politics is a trade in which the sly outweigh the wise.

— Hilaire Belloc

It is in the irony of Providence that the more man comes to control the material world about him, the more does he lose control over the effects of his action; and it is when he is remaking the world most speedily that he knows least whither he is driving.

— Hilaire Belloc

The object of a religion or a philosophy is not to make men wealthy or powerful, but to make them, in the last issue, happy: that is, to fulfil their being.

— Hilaire Belloc

Even where the Faith is preserved men pursue wealth and power inordinately. Where the Faith is lost they pursue nothing else.

— Hilaire Belloc

For the line of cleavage does not fall between the various groups, Catholic, Agnostic, Evangelical, or what not, but between the Catholic Church and all else. She is unique, and at issue with the world.

— Hilaire Belloc

It is not insignificant that the Church, in the rare places and times when she had power to do so, did not compel the mind. During all that intense intellectual life of the thirteenth century instruction was by choice: endowed—so that the poorest could reach the highest inspiration, but at the choice of the individual or family will, to be taken or left.

— Hilaire Belloc

All teaching is dogmatic. Dogma, indeed, means only "a thing taught," and teaching not dogmatic would cease to be teaching and would become discussion and doubt.

— Hilaire Belloc

[I]n words lie the seeds of all dissension, and love at its most profound is silent.

— Hilaire Belloc

Be content to remember that those who can make omelettes properly can do nothing else.

— Hilaire Belloc

Any subject can be made interesting, and therefore any subject can be made boring.

— Hilaire Belloc

To exalt, enthrone, establish and defend,Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song!

— Hilaire Belloc

By thee do seers the inward light discern;By thee the statue lives, the Gods return.

— Hilaire Belloc

When the ephemeral vision's lure is pastAll, all, must face their Passion at the last.

— Hilaire Belloc

So touch my dying lip: so bridge that deep:Strong brother in God and last companion, Wine.

— Hilaire Belloc

That I grow sour, who only lack delight;Diana of this world, do not believe.

— Hilaire Belloc

Torture will give a dozen pence or moreTorture is positively paid to sing.

— Hilaire Belloc

In soft deluding lies let fools delight.A shadow marks our days, which end in Night.

— Hilaire Belloc

How slow the Shadow creeps: but when 'tis past,How fast the Shadows fall. How fast! How fast!

— Hilaire Belloc

Loss and Possession, Death and Life are one.There falls no shadow where there shines no sun.

— Hilaire Belloc

Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight,But Roaring Bill (who killed him) thought it right.

— Hilaire Belloc

Kings live in Palaces, and Pigs in sties,And youth in Expectation. Youth is wise.

— Hilaire Belloc

The future always comes as a surprise, but political wisdom consists in attempting at least some partial judgment of what that surprise may be. And for my part I cannot but believe that a main unexpected thing of the future is the return of Islam.

— Hilaire Belloc

Of all fatiguing, futile, empty trades, the worst, I suppose, is writing about writing.

— Hilaire Belloc

Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death.

— Hilaire Belloc

All men have an instinct for conflict: at least, all healthy men.

— Hilaire Belloc

The moment a man talks to his fellows he begins to lie.

— Hilaire Belloc

When I am dead, I hope it may be said: His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

— Hilaire Belloc