It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Deception/Lying, Lies
The worst sort of hypocrite and liar is the man who lies to himself in order to feel at ease.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Hypocrisy
The microbe is so very small: You cannot take him out at all.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Science
The Rich arrived in pairs
And also in Rolls Royces;
They talked of their affairs
In loud and strident voices…
The Poor arrived in Fords,
Whose features they resembled;
They laughed to see so many Lords
And Ladies all assembled.
The People in Between
Looked underdone and harassed,
And our of place and mean,
And Horribly embarrassed.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Wealth
The moment a man talks to his fellows he begins to lie.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Conversation
When I am dead, I hope it may be said: “His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Authors & Writing
Matilda told such dreadful lies,
It made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes;
Her aunt, who from her earliest youth,
Had kept a strict regard for truth,
Attempted to believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Deception/Lying
Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.
—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
Topics: Space, Friendship
Child! Do not throw this book about;
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Books
All men have an instinct for conflict: at least, all healthy men.
—Hilaire Belloc
Great artistic talent in any direction… is hardly inherent to the man. It comes and goes; it is often possessed only for a short phase in his life; it hardly ever colors his character as a whole and has nothing to do with the moral and intellectual stuff of the mind and soul. Many great artists, perhaps most great artists, have been poor fellows indeed, whom to know was to despise.
—Hilaire Belloc
I have wandered all my life, and I have traveled; the difference between the two is this—we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Travel
Writing itself is a bad enough trade, rightly held up to ridicule and contempt by the greater part of mankind, and especially by those who do real work, plowing, riding, sailing
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Authors & Writing
Never could an increase of comfort or security be a sufficient good to be bought at the price of liberty.
—Hilaire Belloc
Be at the pains of putting down every single item of expenditure whatsoever every day which could possibly be twisted into a professional expense and remember to lump in all the doubtfuls.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Shopping
I shoot the Hippopotamus
With bullets made of platinum,
Because if I use leaden ones
His hide is sure to flatten ’em.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Animals, Hunting
I’m tired of Love: I’m still more tired of Rhyme.
But Money gives me pleasure all the time.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Money
To walk because it is good for you warps the sould, just as it warps the soul for a man to talk for hire or because he think it his duty.
—Hilaire Belloc
From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There’s nothing worth the winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Winning, Friends and Friendship, Friendship, Laughter
Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelet and the intolerable, so with autobiography.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Biography, Autobiography
It is the best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Singing
Loss and possession, Death and life are one. There falls no shadow where There shines no sun.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Death, Dying
Remote and ineffectual don.
—Hilaire Belloc
Topics: Universities, Education
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Matthew Arnold English Poet, Critic
Maurice Baring British Author
Leigh Hunt British Author
Evelyn Waugh British Novelist, Satirist
Graham Greene British Novelist
G. K. Chesterton English Journalist
John Dryden English Poet
Aldous Huxley English Humanist
Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) English Romantic Poet
John Keats English Poet