Hilaire Belloc Quotes

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.

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."

When they married and gave in marriage
They danced at the County Ball
And some of them kept a carriage
And the flood destroyed them all.

There is thus a very great deal in common between the enthusiasm with which Mohammed's teaching attacked the priesthood, the Mass and the sacraments, and the enthusiasm with which Calvinism, the central motive force of the Reformation, did the same.

"Like most modern words, "Heresy" is used both vaguely and diversely. It is used vaguely because the modern mind is as averse to precision in ideas as it is enamored of precision in measurement. It is used diversely because, according to the man who uses it, it may represent any one of fifty things."

The reason the Dead do not return nowadays is the boredom of it.

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

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

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

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

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

Of three in One and One in three
My narrow mind would doubting be
Till Beauty, Grace and Kindness met
And all at once were Juliet.

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

The Llama is a wooly sort of fleecy hairy goat,
With an indolent expression and an undulating throat
Like an unsuccessful literary man.