Hilaire Belloc: Doing

Hilaire Belloc was writer. Explore interesting quotes on doing.

Hilaire Belloc: 182 quotes8 likes

“… and as to what may be in this book, do not feel timid nor hesitate to enter. There are more mountains than molehills …”

caption to the frontispiece, p. ii
The Path to Rome (1902)

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

IV. On Making an Omelette
A Conversation with a Cat, and Others (1931)

“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.”

"Juliet", Sonnets and Verse (1954)

“Child! Do not throw this book about;
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.”

"Dedication on the Gift of a Book to a Child"
Verses (1910)

“The Big Baboon is found upon
The plains of Cariboo:
He goes about with nothing on
(A shocking thing to do).
But if he dressed respectably
And let his whiskers grow,
How like this Big Baboon would be
To Mister So-and-so!”

Hilaire Belloc book The Bad Child's Book of Beasts

"The Big Baboon"
The Bad Child's Book of Beasts (1896)

“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.”

"Sonnet: Do not believe when lovely lips report"
To Lady Diana Cooper. See her memoir, The Light of Common Day (Boston: Houghton, 1959), pp. 27–28
Sonnets and Verse (1938)

“By thee do seers the inward light discern;
By thee the statue lives, the Gods return.”

Heroic Poem in Praise of Wine (1932)

“It is not insignificant that the Church, in the rare places and times when she had power to do so, did not compel the mind. During all that intense intellectual life of the thirteenth century instruction was by choice: endowed—so that the poorest could reach the highest inspiration, but at the choice of the individual or family will, to be taken or left.”

Source: Survivals and New Arrivals (1929), Ch. IV The Main Opposition (iii) The "Modern" Mind