Men will learn eventually, and if they insist on rejecting the received wisdom of generations past, they do not thereby succeed at invalidating it; they merely condemn themselves to learning it, time and again, by ever grimmer experience.
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) Franco-British writer, historian [Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc]
(Misattributed)
(Source)
While usually attributed to Belloc, and even further to his essay "The Restoration of Property" (1936), it does not appear in that work, proper. Rather, it is found in the Introduction to the 2002 IHS Press edition the work, signed only by the Directors of the IHS Press.
Quotations by:
Belloc, Hilaire
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 (1870-1953) Franco-British writer, historian [Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc]
The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts, Dedication (1896)
Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim Gun, and they have not.Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) Franco-British writer, historian [Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc]
The Modern Traveller, ch. 6 (1898)
On British imperialism in Africa.
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 (1870-1953) Franco-British writer, historian [Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc]
Verses, “Dedicatory Ode” (1910)
When I am dead, I hope it may be said:
“His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) Franco-British writer, historian [Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc]
Poem (1923), “Epigram 1: On His Books,” Sonnets and Verse
(Source)
Sometimes called "An Author's Hope."
He served his God so faithfully and well,
That now he sees him face to face, in hell.Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) Franco-British writer, historian [Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc]
Poem (1923), “Epigram 45: On a Puritan,” Sonnets and Verse (1923 ed.)
(Source)
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.
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) Franco-British writer, historian [Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc]
Remark to William Temple
(Source)
Quoted in Robert Speaight, The Life of Hilaire Belloc (1957). Variant: "The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine, but for unbelievers, here is proof of its divinity, that no merely human institution run with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight."