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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. stanza 3The library was most inviting:The books upon the crowded shelvesWere mainly of our private writing:We kept a school and taught ourselves. stanza 15From quiet homes and first beginning,Out to the undiscovered ends,Theres nothing worth the wear of winning,But laughter and the love of friends. stanza 22You do retain the song we set,And how it rises, trips and scans?You keep the sacred memory yet,Republicans? Republicans?stanza 36
-Hilaire Belloc
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Animals
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I shoot the Hippopotamus with bullets made of platinum, because if I use the leaden one his hide is sure to flatten em.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Artist, The
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Great artistic talent in any direction... is hardly inherent to the man. It comes and goes; it is often possessed only for a short phase in his life; it hardly ever colors his character as a whole and has nothing to do with the moral and intellectual stuff of the mind and soul. Many great artists, perhaps most great artists, have been poor fellows indeed, whom to know was to despise.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Authors & Writing
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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
-Hilaire Belloc
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When I am dead, I hope it is said,
'His sins were scarlet, but his books were read'.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Books
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Child! Do not throw this book about;
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.
-Hilaire Belloc, dedication to The Bad Child's Book of Beasts (1896)
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Coffee (or Tea)
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Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Conflict
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All men have an instinct for conflict: at least, all healthy men.
-Hilaire Belloc, The Silence of the Sea
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Conversation
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The moment a man talks to his fellows he begins to lie.
-Hilaire Belloc, The Silence of the Sea
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Death
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Loss and possession, Death and life are one. There falls no shadow where There shines no sun.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Deception/Lying
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It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Matilda told such dreadful lies,
It made one gasp and stretch one's eyes;
Her aunt, who from her earliest youth,
Had kept a strict regard for truth,
Attempted to believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her.
-Hilaire Belloc, Cautionary Tales, 1907
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Education
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Remote and ineffectual don.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Friends
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From quiet homes and first beginning, out to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.
-Hilaire Belloc
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From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.
-Hilaire Belloc, Dedicatory Ode Sonnets and Verse (1923)
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Hunting
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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.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Legacy
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Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelet and the intolerable, so with autobiography.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Money
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I'm tired of love; I'm still more tired of rhyme; but money gives me pleasure all the time.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Science
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The microbe is so very small: You cannot take him out at all.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Shopping
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Be at the pains of putting down every single item of expenditure whatsoever every day which could possibly be twisted into a professional expense and remember to lump in all the doubtfuls.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Singing
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It is the best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Space
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When friendship disappears then there is a space left open to that awful loneliness of the outside world which is like the cold space between the planets. It is an air in which men perish utterly.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Travel
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I have wandered all my life, and I have traveled; the difference between the two is this -- we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.
-Hilaire Belloc
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Walking
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To walk because it is good for you warps the sould, just as it warps the soul for a man to talk for hire or because he think it his duty.
-Hilaire Belloc, The Footpath Way (introduction)
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Wealth
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The Rich arrived in pairs
And also in Rolls Royces;
They talked of their affairs
In loud and strident voices...
The Poor arrived in Fords,
Whose features they resembled;
They laughed to see so many Lords
And Ladies all assembled.
The People in Between
Looked underdone and harassed,
And our of place and mean,
And Horribly embarrassed.
-Hilaire Belloc, The Garden Party
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Books by and about Hilaire Belloc