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Hillaire Belloc

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters, and political activist. He is most notable for his Catholic faith, which had a strong impact on most of his works and his writing collaboration with G.K. Chesterton.

He was President of the Oxford Union and later MP for Salford from 1906 to 1910. He was a noted disputant, with a number of long-running feuds, but also widely regarded as a humane and sympathetic man.


“These are the advantages of travel, that one meets so many men whom one would otherwise never meet, and that one feeds as it were upon the complexity of mankind”
Hillaire Belloc
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“When they married and gave in marriageThey danced at the County BallAnd some of them kept a carriageAnd the flood destroyed them all.”
Hillaire Belloc
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“When I am dead, I hope it may be said, 'His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”
Hillaire Belloc
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