Hilaire Belloc Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Hilaire Belloc's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Writer Hilaire Belloc's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 146 quotes on this page collected since July 27, 1870! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
  • 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 (1954). “The Verse of Hilaire Belloc”
  • The moment a man talks to his fellows he begins to lie.

    Hilaire Belloc (1971). “The Silence of the Sea, and Other Essays”, Ayer Company Pub
  • 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 (1962). “Hilaire Belloc: An Anthology of His Prose and Verse”
  • It seems to be saying perpetually; 'I am the end of the nineteenth century; I am glad they built me of iron; let me rust.' ... It is like a passing fool in a crowd of the University, a buffoon in the hall; for all the things in Paris has made, it alone has neither wits nor soul.

  • It is Mind which determines the change of Society, and it was because the mind at work was a Catholic mind that the slave became a serf and was on his way to becoming a peasant and a fully free man-a man free economically as well as politically. The whole spirit of the Church was for small property, and that spirit was slowly, instinctively, working for the establishment of small property throughout Christendom.

    Hilaire Belloc (2016). “The Crisis Of Civilization”, p.47, TAN Books
  • Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight. But roaring Bill, who killed him, thought it right.

    Sonnets and Verse (ed. 2, 1938) "The Pacifist"
  • Remote and ineffectual don.

    'Lines to a Don' (1910)
  • Under the old philosophy which had governed the high Middle Ages things had been everywhere towards a condition of Society in which property was well distributed throughout the community, and thus the family rendered independent.

    Hilaire Belloc (2016). “The Crisis Of Civilization”, p.84, TAN Books
  • When one remembers how the Catholic Church has been governed, and by whom, one realizes that it must have been divinely inspired to have survived at all.

  • How slow the shadow creeps: but when 'tis past How fast the shadows fall. How fast! How fast!

    Hilaire Belloc (1954). “The Verse of 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 (2015). “Delphi Works of Hilaire Belloc (Illustrated)”, p.795, Delphi Classics
  • How on earth could that be done? If you try to laugh and say 'No' at the same time, it sounds like neighing - yet people are perpetually doing it in novels. If they did it in real life they would be locked up.

  • It has been discovered that with a dull urban population, all formed under a mechanical system of State education, a suggestion or command, however senseless and unreasoned, will be obeyed if it be sufficiently repeated.

    Hilaire Belloc (2002). “An Essay on the Restoration of Property”, p.35, IHS Press
  • When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.

    Hilaire Belloc (1955). “Essays”
  • Slowly but certainly the proletarian, by every political reform which secures his well-being under new rules of insurance, of State control in education, of State medicine and the rest, is developing into the slave, leaving the rich man apart and free. All industrial civilization is clearly moving towards the re-establishment of the Servile State.

    Hilaire Belloc (2009). “Essays of a Catholic”, p.167, TAN Books
  • Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death.

    The Silence of the Sea On Statistics (p. 173)
  • The term "Socialism" becomes a common label for the various theories of attack upon the principle of property, the various policies of communal control at the expense of the family and individual freedom.

    Hilaire Belloc (2016). “The Crisis Of Civilization”, p.116, TAN Books
  • Under the old social philosophy which had governed the Middle Ages, temporal, and therefore all economic, activities were referred to an eternal standard. The production of wealth, it distribution and exchange were regulated with a view to securing the Christian life of Christian men. In two points especially was this felt: First in securing the independence of the family, which can only be done by the wide distribution of property, in others words the prevention of the growth of a proletariat; secondly, in the close connection between wealth and public function.

  • The grace of God is courtesy.

  • Coupled with Usury, Unrestricted Competition destroys the small man for the profit of the great and in so doing produces that mass of economically unfree citizens whose very political freedom comes in question because it has no foundation in any economic freedom, that is, any useful proportion of property to support it. Political freedom without economic freedom is almost worthless, and it is because the modern proletariat has the one kind of freedom without the other that its rebellion is now threatening the very structure of the modern world.

  • Before the curse of statistics fell upon mankind we lived a happy, innocent life, full of merriment and go and informed by fairly good judgment.

    The Silence of the Sea On Statistics (p. 171)
  • Consider in what way the industrial system developed upon capitalist lines. Why were a few rich men put with such ease into possession of the new methods? Why was it normal and natural in their eyes and in that of contemporary society that those who produced the new wealth with the new machinery should be proletarian and dispossessed?

  • Money gives me pleasure all the time.

    'Fatigued' (1923)
  • The whole art of the political speech is to put 'nothing' into it. It is much more difficult than it sounds.

  • To control the production of wealth is to control human life itself. To refuse man the opportunity for the production of wealth is to refuse him the opportunity for life; and, in general, the way in which the production of wealth is by law permitted is the only way in which the citizens can legally exist.

    Hilaire Belloc (1970). “Belloc: A Biographical Anthology”
  • I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This 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.

    "The Life of Hilaire Belloc". Book by Robert Speaight, 1957.
  • The old freedom sufficiently survives in the mind of the wage earner to give him the illusion that, while accepting insurance and maintenance from the capitalist state, he can still be a full citizen. He thinks he can have his cake and eat it too. He is mistaken. The great capitalists who procured these regulations from the politicians knew what they were at. They were catching their proletariat in a net, and now they hold it fast.

    Hilaire Belloc (2009). “Essays of a Catholic”, p.13, TAN Books
  • When people call this beast to mind, They marvel more and more At such a little tail behind, So large a trunk before.

    Bad Child's Book of Beasts (1896) "The Elephant"
  • I forget the name of the place; I forget the name of the girl; but the wine was Chambertin.

  • Ownership is not a general feature of our society, determining its character. On the contrary, dependence on a precarious wage at the will of others is the general feature of our society.

    Hilaire Belloc (2002). “An Essay on the Restoration of Property”, p.23, IHS Press
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  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 146 quotes from the Writer Hilaire Belloc, starting from July 27, 1870! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!