Hilaire Belloc
Birth Name: Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc
Birthdate: July 27, 1870
Birthplace: La Celle-Saint-Cloud, Seine-et-Oise, France
Date of Death: July 16, 1953
Occupation: Author, Historian, Poet, and Politician
Profile: UK Member of Parliament for Salford (1906–1910). Best known for
The Bad Child's Book of Beasts.
Website: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hilaire-belloc
Number of Quotes: 40
Accusing the people in power of corruption, provided it is done in the right way, always does well in this country.
The Path to Rome (1902)
All men have an instinct for conflict: at least, all healthy men.
An institute run with such knavish imbecility that if it were not the work
of God it would not last a fortnight.
And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse.
Cautionary Tales for Children (1907)
Any subject can be made interesting, and therefore any subject can be made boring.
Be content to remember that those who can make omelettes properly can do nothing else.
Child! do not throw this book about;
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.
A Bad Child's Book of Beasts (1896)
Dear Mary, it has been said
That you lie upon your bed
In a shroud of white,
All austere and bright.
Verses and Sonnets (1896) and Our Lady (1895)
Every major question in history is a religious question. It has more effect in molding life than nationalism or a common language.
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.
Dedicatory Ode (1909–1910) and Sonnets and Verse (1923)
His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.
New Cautionary Tales: Verses (1930) and On a Publisher (1930)
I am a sundial, and I make a botch
Of what is done far better by a watch.
New Cautionary Tales: Verses (1930) and The Sundial (1930)
I am writing a book about the Crusades so dull that I can scarcely write it.
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.
I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme.
But Money gives me pleasure all the time.
New Cautionary Tales: Verses (1930) and Fatigue (1930)
Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that
I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.
Heroic Poem in Praise of Wine (1915) and Sonnets and Verse (1923)
It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation.
It is the best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them.
New Cautionary Tales: Verses (1930) and On Song (1930)
Jim, who ran away from his Nurse, and was eaten by a Lion.
Cautionary Tales for Children (1907)
Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelet and the intolerable, so with autobiography.
Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.
Cautionary Tales for Children (1907) and Lord Finchley (1907)
Loss and possession, death and life are one, There falls no shadow where there shines no sun.
Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes.
Cautionary Tales for Children (1907) and Matilda: Who Told Lies, and Was Burned to Death (1907)
Money gives me pleasure all the time.
Of all fatiguing, futile, empty trades, the worst, I suppose, is writing about writing.
Oh, my friends, be warned by me, That breakfast, dinner, lunch and tea, Are all human frame requires.
Physicians of the Utmost Fame
Were called at once; but when they came
They answered, as they took their Fees,
There is no cure for this disease.
Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death.
The accursed power which stands on Privilege
(And goes with Women, and Champagne, and Bridge)
Broke - and Democracy resumed her reign:
(Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne).
New Cautionary Tales: Verses (1930) and On a General Election (1930)
The devil, having nothing else to do,
Went off to tempt my Lady Poltagrue.
My Lady, tempted by a private whim,
To his extreme annoyance, tempted him.
More Beasts for Worse Children (1897) and The devil's Diplomacy (1897)
The grace of God is courtesy.
The Microbe is so very small
You cannot make him out at all,
But many sanguine people hope
To see him through a microscope.
The Bad Child's Book of Beasts (1896) and The Microbe (1896)
The moment a man talks to his fellows he begins to lie.
The people in between
Looked underdone and harassed,
And out of place and mean,
And horribly embarrassed.
The Modern Traveller (1898)
The pilgrim is humble and devout, and human, and charitable, and ready to smile and admire; therefore, he should
comprehend the whole of his way, the people in it, and the hills and the clouds, and the habits of the various cities.
The Path to Rome (1902)
There is no secret. We sit here and talk,
And one thing I may tell you is we walk.
We walk.
The Path to Rome (1902)
There is not anything that can so suddenly flood the mind with shame as the
conviction of ignorance, yet we are all ignorant of nearly everything there is to be known.
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.
When I am dead, I hope it may be said: His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.
Sonnets and Verse (1938) and On His Books (1938)
Last on Earth
