Hilaire Belloc: Thing

Hilaire Belloc was writer. Explore interesting quotes on thing.
Hilaire Belloc: 182   quotes 8   likes

“All teaching is dogmatic. Dogma, indeed, means only "a thing taught," and teaching not dogmatic would cease to be teaching and would become discussion and doubt.”

Hilaire Belloc

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

“Now the Faith is old and the Devil is bold,
Exceedingly bold indeed;
And the masses of doubt that are floating about
Would smother a mortal creed.
But we that sit in a sturdy youth,
And still can drink strong ale,
Oh—let us put it away to infallible truth,
That always shall prevail.
  [semi-chorus:]
And thank the Lord
For the temporal sword,
And howling heretics too;
And all good things
Our Christendom brings,
But especially barley brew!”

Hilaire Belloc

the "Pelagian" drinking song, p. 50
The Four Men: A Farrago (1911)

Truth , Youth , Faith , Drink

“The Science of Economics does not deal with true happiness nor even with well-being in material things. It deals with a strictly limited field of what is called "Economic Wealth," and if it goes outside its own boundaries it goes wrong.”

Hilaire Belloc

Source: Economics for Helen (1924), Ch. 1 : What is Wealth?

Science , Wealth , Happiness

“It is a consolation to remember that corruption pushed beyond a certain point provides its own remedy, and that this sort of thing cannot indefinitely continue; but it is less consoling to remember another truth, to wit, that the correction of political and social evil may come in the form of irremediable catastrophe, and that the innocent, who are the greater number, would then suffer most. It is still less consoling to remember the universal human experience that when evil is redressed by the only partly conscious force of reaction, it is not succeeded by a corresponding good, but by some other new and unexpected evil.”

Hilaire Belloc

Source: The Cruise of the 'Nona (1925), pp. 248–9

Truth , Suffering , Universe , Evil

“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)

“[M]an knows his own nature, and that which he pursues must surely be his satisfaction? Judging by which measure I determine that the best thing in the world is flying at full speed from pursuit, and keeping up hammer and thud and gasp and bleeding till the knees fail and the head grows dizzy, and at last we all fall down and that thing (whatever it is) which pursues us catches us up and eats our carcasses. This way of managing our lives, I think, must be the best thing in the world—for nearly all men choose to live thus.”

Hilaire Belloc

The "thing" which pursues us, we subsequently learn, is either "a Money-Devil" or "some appetite or lust" and "the advice is given to all in youth that they must make up their minds which of the two sorts of exercise they would choose, and the first [i.e. pursuit by a Money-Devil] is commonly praised and thought worthy; the second blamed." (p. 32)
Source: The Four Men: A Farrago (1911), pp. 31–2

Men , World , Way , Nature

“I put my pencil upon the paper, doubtfully, and drew little lines, considering my theme. But I would not long hesitate in this manner, for I knew that all creation must be chaos first, and then gestures in the void before it can cast out the completed thing.”

Hilaire Belloc

Source: The Four Men: A Farrago (1911), p. 160

“Death […] people nowadays seem to regard as something odd, whereas it is well known to be the commonest thing in the world.”

Hilaire Belloc

Source: The Path to Rome (1902), p. 258

Death , People , World

“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.”

Hilaire Belloc

"On Torture: A Public Singer"
Sonnets and Verse (1938)

Singing

“The future always comes as a surprise, but political wisdom consists in attempting at least some partial judgment of what that surprise may be. And for my part I cannot but believe that a main unexpected thing of the future is the return of Islam.”

Hilaire Belloc

Quoted by: Philip Jenkins, God's Continent / Christianity, Islam And Europe's Religious Crisis https://books.google.nl/books?id=IilDVBzWiGAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22God%27s+Continent+/+Christianity,+Islam+And+Europe%27s+Religious+Crisis%22&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTy-arla3MAhVCQBoKHWTlAToQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22And%20for%20my%20part%20I%20cannot%20but%20believe%22&f=false, 2007, p.3
Source: The Great Heresies (1938), Chapter III

Wisdom , Future , Parting

“There is nothing at all that remains: nor any house; nor any castle, however strong; nor any love, however tender and sound; nor any comradeship among men, however hardy. Nothing remains but the things of which I will not speak, because we have spoken enough of them already during these four days. But I who am old will give you advice, which is this—to consider chiefly from now onwards those permanent things which are, as it were, the shores of this age and the harbours of our glittering and pleasant but dangerous and wholly changeful sea.”

Hilaire Belloc

By this, we are then told, "he meant Death." (p. 158)
Source: The Four Men: A Farrago (1911), pp. 157–8

Love , Men , Age , Strong