Hilaire Belloc Quotes

French-English writer (1870–1953)

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (27 July 1870 – 16 July 1953) was a Franco-English writer and poet, known chiefly for his essays and children's books; he was sometimes referred to by the nickname "Old Thunder". Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist.

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Alternative Names: Hilaire Pierre Belloc • Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc

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I shoot the Hippopotamus
With bullets made of platinum,
Because if I use leaden ones
His hide is sure to flatten 'em.

[M]others of large families (who claim to common sense)
Will find a Tiger well repay the trouble and expense.

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

It was my shame, and now it is my boast,
That I have loved you rather more than most.

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.

The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine — but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.

How did the party go in Portman Square?
I cannot tell you; Juliet was not there.
And how did Lady Gaster's party go?
Juliet was next me and I do not know.

I'm tired of Love; I'm still more tired of Rhyme.
But money gives me pleasure all the time.

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.

Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have left the vulgar stuff alone.

Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This [taking a rosary out of his pocket] 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.

You who go in railways are necessarily shut up in long valleys and even sometimes by the wall of earth. Even those who bicycle or drive see these sights but rarely and with consecution, since roads also avoid climbing save where they are forced to it, as over certain passes. It is only by following the straight line onwards that anyone can pass from ridge to ridge and have this full picture of the way he has been.

Human society cannot carry on without some creed, because a code and a character are the
product of a creed.

"Then did I conceive yet another stupendous thing. 'Bid them,' said I to the sultan, 'take the notes as money. Cease to repay. Write, not "I will on delivery of this paper pay a piece of gold," but, "this is a piece of gold."'

"He did as I told him. The next day the vizier came to me with the story of an insolent fellow to whom fifty such notes had been offered as payment for a camel for the war and who had sent back, not a camel, but another piece of paper on which was written 'This is a camel.'

"'Cut off his head!' said I.

"It was done, and the warning sufficed. The paper was taken and the war proceeded.