Hilaire Belloc Quotes - Page 5

You are my cat, and I am your human.

Oh, my friends, be warned by me, That breakfast, dinner, lunch and tea, Are all human frame requires.

[Heresy is] the dislocation of a complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein.

For one thing, I was no longer alone; a man is never alone with the wind-and the boat made three.

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?

We cannot make owners by merely giving men something to own. And, I repeat, whether there be sufficient desire for property left upon which we can work, only experience can decide.

If any man gives you a wine you can't bear, don't say it is beastly... But don't say you like it. You are endangering your soul and the use of wine as well... Seek out some other wine good to your taste.

Let us then repeat and firmly fix this main point: the evil, the root evil, of that to which the term Capitalism has come to be applied, is neither its functioning for profit nor its dependence upon legally protected private property; but the presence of a Proletariat, that is of men possessing political freedom, but dispossessed of economic freedom, and existing in such large numbers in any community as to determine the tone of all that community.

The very large units of production and exchange have access to credit on a large scale, sometimes without any cover at all, merely upon the prospect of their success, and always upon terms far easier than are open to their smaller rivals. It is perhaps on this line of easier credit that large capital today does most harm to small capital, drives it out and ruins it.

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

Dear Grandmamma, with what we give. We humbly pray that you may live. For many, many happy years: Although you bore us all to tears.

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

If we are to be happy, decent and secure of our souls: drink some kind of fermented liquor with one's food; go on the water from time to time; dance on occasions, and sing in a chorus.

That I grow sour, who only lack delight; That I descend to sneer, who only grieve: That from my depth I should contemn your height; That with my blame my mockery you receive; Huntress and splendour of the woodland night, Diana of this world, do not believe.

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.

Torture will give a dozen pence or more To keep a drab from bawling at his door. The public taste is quite a different thing Torture is positively paid to sing.

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.

Wherever the Industrial system has reached its second generation it is threatened by two mortal perils. The first is the demand by an organized proletariat for sustenance without relation to the product of its labor; a demand which threatens the very existence of PROFIT (on the necessary presumption of which Capitalism reposes). The second, and immediately graver danger is that of a revolt for the confiscation of the means of production.

Property, as a general social institution, well-divided property, having disappeared and Capitalism having taken its place, you cannot reverse the process without acting against natural economic tendencies.

The larger the unit of capital present, the easier the transaction called emission of credit. Centralized lending of this kind (which is today universal) actively promotes the absorption of the small man by the great, the reduction of small property owners to a proletarian condition.

Put you hand before your eyes and remember, you that have walked, the places from which you have walked away, and the wilderness into which you manfully turned the steps of your abandonment ... It is your business to leave all that you have know altogether behind you, and no man has eyes at the back of his head - go forward.

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.

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

Be content to remember that those who can make omelettes properly can do nothing else.

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