Mike IJzerman > Mike's Quotes

“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Andrey Semyonovitch really was rather stupid; he attached himself to the cause of progress and 'our younger generation' from enthusiasm. He was one of the numerous and varied legions of dullards, of half-animate abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“It [feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

“The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

“You will smile here at the consistency of those democratists who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time they pretend to make them the depositories of all power.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

“If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“Where did I get it from? Was it by reason that I attained to the knowledge that I must love my neighbour and not throttle him? They told me so when I was a child, and I gladly believed it, because they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason! Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“It is an unchristian religion, in the first place!' the prince resumed in great agitation and with excessive sharpness. 'That's in the first place, and secondly, Roman Catholicism is even worse than atheism - that's my opinion. Yes, that's my opinion! Atheism merely preaches a negation, but Catholicism goes further: it preaches a distorted Christ, a Christ calumniated and defamed by it, the opposite of Christ! It preaches Antichrist - I swear it does, I assure you it does! This is my personal opinion, an opinion I've held for a long time, and it has worried me a lot myself. ... Roman Catholicism believes that the Church cannot exist on earth without universal temporal power, and cries: Non possumus! In my opinion, Roman Catholicism isn't even a religion, but most decidedly a continuation of the Holy Roman Empire, and everything in it is subordinated to that idea, beginning with faith. The Pope seized the earth, an earthly throne and took up the sword; and since then everything has gone on in the same way, except that they've added lies, fraud, deceit, fanaticism, superstition wickedness. They have trifled with the most sacred, truthful, innocent, ardent feelings of the people, have bartered it all for money, for base temporal power. And isn't this the teaching of Antichrist? Isn't it clear that atheism had to come from them? And it did come from them, from Roman Catholicism itself! Atheism originated first of all with them: how could they believe in themselves? It gained ground because of abhorrence of them; it is the child of their lies and their spiritual impotence! Atheism! In our country it is only the upper classes who do not believe, as Mr Radomsky so splendidly put it the other day, for they have lost their roots. But in Europe vast numbers of the common people are beginning to lose their faith - at first from darkness and lies, and now from fanaticism, hatred of the Church and Christianity!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

“Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance; commits his body
To painful labor, both by sea and land;
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou li’st warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience-
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And no obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel,
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I asham’d that women are so simple
‘To offer war where they should kneel for peace,
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions, and our hearts,
Should well agree with our external parts?”
― William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

“What God says is best, is best, though all the men in the world are against it.”
― John Bunyan, The Pilgrims Progress

“That is what Reason can neither grasp nor endure, and what has offended all these men of outstanding talent who have been so received for so many centuries. Here they demand that God should act according to human justice, and do what seems right to them or else cease to be God.”
― Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will

“As far as sacred Scripture is concerned, however much froward men try to gnaw at it, nevertheless it clearly is crammed with thoughts that could not be humanly conceived. Let each of the prophets be looked into: none will be found who does not far exceed human measure. Consequently, those for whom prophetic doctrine is tasteless ought to be thought of as lacking taste buds.”
― John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 Vols

“Mingled vanity and pride appear in this, that when miserable men do seek after God, instead of ascending higher than themselves as they ought to do, they measure him by their own carnal stupidity, and, neglecting solid inquiry, fly off to indulge their curiosity in vain speculation. Hence, they do not conceive of him in the character in which he is manifested, but imagine him to be whatever their own rashness has devised.”
― John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion

“His profligate affairs prevented him from becoming conscious of his own depravity, for conscience defers its potency when pleasure requires satiation.”
― Mike IJzerman, Revelation

“Let us be reasonable, so that we may have the right to be miserable.”
― Mike IJzerman, Resurrection

“Courting women is different now; the gallant kisses upon her hand, the erect and dignified postures of the men, the resplendent military uniforms, the subtle and decorous innuendos of speech, the refined and verbose laudations… all vanished with the wind. Shall that chivalric spirit ever return? I know not, but I do yearn for it…”
― Mike IJzerman, Redemption

“It would seem as if progress would benefit the underprivileged above all others, but in reality it is oftener the case that the townspeople are more disposed to consent to radical change; their frenetic environment fosters a sort of flightiness that must be appeased by resorting to anything which resembles a novelty. All of this is a requisite for large towns, for the intricate connection of enterprises, occupations and maintenances requires all citizens to have a tractable disposition, lest everything collapse by the idleness of the obdurate mind. Peasants, however, live by the old ways. Nay, even if they be destitute or famished, they shall nevertheless not fail to adhere to those values which they and their antecedents have always esteemed, because that is how they have always lived, and shall always live. Their environment is serene, and they need not follow novelty to maintain their livelihoods. If one imprisons an animal for a protracted period of time, it shall eventually forgo the taste of freedom. And so these former slaves – for that is essentially what they were four years ago – have become dependent on the fetters, and cannot continue to endure without complete subservience.”
― Mike IJzerman, Revelation

“You speak of the future? I know no future. I know no present. All I know is a small sphere founded upon the past; a sphere that is immutable and sacred; a sphere which brooks no baneful novelties, but contents itself with an antiquated sense of order.”
― Mike IJzerman, Redemption

“Carnal reason doth oft inadvertently rebel against things which to us seem improbable, even if it was thus ordained before we e’er stirred in our mother’s wombs.”
― Mike IJzerman, The Broken Reed

“Seeking to bury the oppressed conscience of my mind, I have languished in the durance of my heart. For I knew not that I could not bury the past, and I comprehended not that the memory of our errs are made to vex us whithersoever we go. But all our chapters must close insofar as God allows us to close them, and this is one which cannot remain incomplete as long as I draw breath.”
― Mike IJzerman, The Broken Reed

“Impetuosity is a redoubtable vow-breaker.”
― Mike IJzerman, The Broken Reed

“Mine eyes had beheld the quintessence of beauty, and memory ensured that I would then remain a prisoner to the vanity of vision.”
― Mike IJzerman, The Broken Reed

“If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house, then in a field,...it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.”
― John Calvin

“No one can travel so far that he does not make some progess each day. So let us never give up. Then we shall move forward daily in the Lord's way. And let us never despair because of our limited success. Even though it is so much less than we would like, our labour is not wasted when today is better than yesterday!”
― John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

“Never can a man be more disastrously in death than when death itself is deathless”
― Saint Augustine of Hippo

“O, tempora! O, mores!”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, In Catilinam 1-2