Hilaire Belloc Quotes

143 Sourced Quotes

The great hills of the South Country
They stand along the sea;
And it's there walking in the high woods
That I could wish to be,
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Walking along with me.

Hilaire Belloc
The chief defect of Henry King Was chewing little bits of string.

Hilaire Belloc
Write as the wind blows and command all words like an army! See them how they stand in rank ready for assault, the jolly, swaggering fellows!

Hilaire Belloc
The world is full of double beds
And most delightful maidenheads,
Which being so, there's no excuse
For sodomy or self-abuse.

Hilaire Belloc
Now the Faith is old and the Devil is bold,
Exceedingly bold indeed;
And the masses of doubt that are floating about
Would smother a mortal creed.
But we that sit in a sturdy youth,
And still can drink strong ale,
Oh—let us put it away to infallible truth,
That always shall prevail.
 [semi-chorus:]
And thank the Lord
For the temporal sword,
And howling heretics too;
And all good things
Our Christendom brings,
But especially barley brew!

Hilaire Belloc
And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse.

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

Hilaire Belloc
For no one, in our long decline, So dusty, spiteful and divided, Had quite such pleasant friends as mine, Or loved them half as much as I did.

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

Hilaire Belloc
Sir! you have disappointed us!
We had intended you to be
The next Prime Minister but three:
The stocks were sold; the Press was squared;
The Middle Class was quite prepared.
But as it is!…My language fails!
Go out and govern New South Wales!

Hilaire Belloc
There is nothing at all that remains: nor any house; nor any castle, however strong; nor any love, however tender and sound; nor any comradeship among men, however hardy. Nothing remains but the things of which I will not speak, because we have spoken enough of them already during these four days. But I who am old will give you advice, which is this—to consider chiefly from now onwards those permanent things which are, as it were, the shores of this age and the harbours of our glittering and pleasant but dangerous and wholly changeful sea.

Hilaire Belloc
Balliol made me, Balliol fed me,
Whatever I had she gave me again:
And the best of Balliol loved and led me.
God be with you, Balliol men.

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
Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.

Hilaire Belloc
You shall receive me when the clouds are high
With evening and the sheep attain the fold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.

Hilaire Belloc
From the towns all Inns have been driven: from the villages most.... Change your hearts or you will lose your Inns and you will deserve to have lost them. But when you have lost your Inns drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.

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

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

Hilaire Belloc
Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There's always laughter and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!

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

Hilaire Belloc
The tender Evenlode that makes
Her meadows hush to hear the sound
Of waters mingling in the brakes,
And binds my heart to English ground. A lovely river, all alone,
She lingers in the hills and holds
A hundred little towns of stone,
Forgotten in the western wolds.

Hilaire Belloc
If antiquity be the test of nobility, as many affirm and none deny…then cheese is a very noble thing.

Hilaire Belloc
These are the advantages of travel, that one meets so many men whom one would otherwise never meet, and that one feeds as it were upon the complexity of mankind.

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

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

Hilaire Belloc
When people call this beast to mind,
They marvel more and more
At such a LITTLE tail behind,
So LARGE a trunk before.

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

Hilaire Belloc
That I grow sour, who only lack delight;
That I descend to sneer, who only grieve:
That from my depth I should contemn your height;
That with my blame my mockery you receive;
Huntress and splendour of the woodland night,
Diana of this world, do not believe.

Hilaire Belloc
The Microbe is so very small
You cannot make him out at all,
But many sanguine people hope
To see him through a microscope.

Hilaire Belloc
Like many of the Upper Class
He liked the Sound of Broken Glass.

Hilaire Belloc