When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.
Hilaire BellocOwnership is not a general feature of our society, determining its character. On the contrary, dependence on a precarious wage at the will of others is the general feature of our society.
Hilaire BellocCapitalism had arisen through the misuse and exaggeration of certain rights, notably the right of property - the basis of economic freedom - and the right of contract, which is one of the main functions of economic freedom. Therefore, even under Capitalism, so long as the old principles were remembered it was possible to recall the principles whereby Society had once been sane and well ordered.
Hilaire BellocThe worship of the nation has been able to make men tolerate under its authority what they could never have tolerated from princes: a submission to rule, which, through sumptuary laws on food and drink, through conscription, through a cast-iron system of compulsory instruction for all on State ordered lines, and through a State examination at the gate of every profession, has almost killed the citizen's power to react upon that which controls him, and has almost destroyed that variety which is the mark of life.
Hilaire BellocI forget the name of the place; I forget the name of the girl; but the wine was Chambertin.
Hilaire BellocWhen the mass of men are dispossessed - own nothing - they become wholly dependent upon the owners; and when those owners are in active competition to lower the cost of production the mass of men whom they exploit not only lack the power to order their own lives, but suffer from want and insecurity as well.
Hilaire Belloc