Netherlands Quotes

“Opinions differ on the question of whether a golden age is something you can experience while it's happening or whether it only comes into focus on reflection...no matter how grand and prosperous and momentous the time in which you are living may be, its grandeur is inevitably stained by the incessant drabness of the present.”
― Russell Shorto, Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City

“Only the language of civilized people may be spoken, thus no German.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“I wonder" he wrote, "if the day will ever come that the loveliest of hymns, Silent Night, will come into the minds of the people throughout the world to express the German heart. I belive it is the expression of the heart of many Germans...[and]of most people throughout the world. That is the appalling tragedy of all that we witness today" Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King in his diary during WWII during German occupation of the Netherlands.”
― Mackenzie King

“De hemel groots en grauw.
daaronder het geweldig laagland met de plassen;
bomen en molens, kerktorens en kassen,
verkaveld door de sloten, zilvergrauw.

dit is mijn land, mijn volk;
dit is de ruimte waarin ik wil klinken.
laat mij één avond in de plassen blinken,
daarna mag ik verdampen als een wolk.”
― Hendrik Marsman, Verzamelde gedichten

“As happens so often in history at the dying of one age and the birth of another, an era of phenomenal ugliness, strife, and chaos was about to unfold.”
― Russell Shorto, Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City

“I like the idea of that small rebellion, carrying a paper piece of the resistance in my shoes.”
― Monica Hesse, Girl in the Blue Coat

“History is lived forwards but it is written in retrospect. We know the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly recapture what it was to know the beginning only.”
― C.V. Wedgwood, William the Silent: William of Nassau, Prince of Orange 1533-1584

“Het huwelijk tussen links Nederland en lichtgetint-orthodox-Nederland is er een dat barst van de ongerijmdheden en dat niet te doorgronden valt. Een gemeenschap die voor het leeuwendeel een geïmporteerd Staphorst is, een soort oriëntaalse SGP, met gesluierde vrouwen, vrouwen die achter de mannen bidden in de moskee, tegen abortus, tegen homo's en transgenders, tegen genderneutraliteit, tegen vrijheid van meningsuiting in de vorm van satire, tegen godslastering, vóór besnijdenis, vóór nationalisme en een eigen-volk-en-geloof-eerst-mentaliteit, met duidelijke rollen voor de geslachten, waarbij de vrouwen de piepers schillen en de mannen brood op de plank brengen, moderniteit-sceptisch en anti-feministisch, wat had die gemeenschap in godesnaam te zoeken bij het inclusieve links met de geheven regenboogvlaggen? Wie stemt er nu Erdoğan in het ene land en PvdA in het andere?”
― Lale Gül, Ik ga leven

“Vous etes comme tout le monde, vous prenez ces braves gens pour une tribu de syndics et de marchands, comptant leurs ecus avec leur cances de vie eternelle, et dont le seul lyrisme consiste a prendre parfois, couverts de larges chapeaux, des lecons d'anatomie? Vous vous trompez. Ils marchent pres de nous, il est vrai, et pourtant, voyez ou se trouvent leurs tetes: dans cette brume de neon, de genievre et de mente qui descend des enseignes rouges et vertes. La Hollande est un songe, monsieur, un songe d'or e te fumee, plus fumeux le jour, plus dore la nuit, et nuit et jour ce songe es peuple de Lohengrin comme ceux-ci, filant reveusement sur leurs noires bicyclettes a hauts guidons, cygnes funebres qui tournent sans treve, dans tout le pays, autour des mers, le long des canaux. Ils revent, la tete dans leur nuees cuivrees, ils roulent en rond, ils prient, somnambules, dans l'encens dore de la brume, ils ne sont plus la.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Wherever autocratic power vanished at an early date—as in the Netherlands and later in England—and the protective interest receded into the background, they swiftly discovered that trade must be free—“free to the nethermost recesses of hell.”
― Joseph Alois Schumpeter

“Diplomacy, if conducted sensibly, is a matter of small gains offset by small losses, an attempt to maintain a state of equilibrium in which catastrophes are either mitigated or, with luck, avoided entirely.”
― William S. Maltby, Alba: A Biography of Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Third Duke of Alba, 1507-1582

“...the disease killed eight thousand...between its first appearance in October 1635 and its eventual disappearance in July 1637...The appalling impact of the plague had two significant consequences. One was that it created a shortage of labor and thus resulted in a rise in wages as employers competed for man-power.”
― Mike Dash, Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

“It's not the fault of the Dutch that we Jews are having such a bad time.”
― Anne Frank, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

“I continue to marvel at this. We got incredibly angry when the city of Palmyra, Syria, was destroyed by IS because the city was reminiscent of pre-Muslim times, shall we say. And I see this as an extension of that. It is nonsense to think that you can erase a past that you don't like.”
― Piet Emmer

“Kilometa mbili na ushei kidogo kutoka katika sanamu la Yesu Mtoto liitwalo Niñopa, katika Kanisa la Parokia ya Manispaa ya Xochimilco ('Sochimiliko') la Iglesia de San Bernardino de Siena, Mexico City, kulikuwa na nyumba ndogo ya siri ('safe house') ya Kolonia Santita iliyojengwa bila uzio wa ukuta au seng’enge isipokuwa miti iliyopandwa kuizunguka bila mpangilio wowote. Ndani ya nyumba hiyo Mpelelezi Maarufu Duniani John Murphy alikuwa akiteswa na magaidi kumi na mbili; waliokuwa wakiendelea kushangaa jinsi alivyookoka katika ajali ya ndege iliyoua watu zaidi ya mia tatu huko Uholanzi, na jinsi alivyoweza kuingia katika ofisi ya siri ya Panthera Tigrisi, kitu kilichomchanganya akili Tigrisi na makompade wote wa Kolonia Santita duniani kote. Bila Mtoto wa Rais wa Meksiko Debbie Patrocinio Abrego, na mwanasesere wa nyoka wa Mtoto wa Mwanasheria Mkuu wa Serikali Lisa Madrazo Graciano, John Murphy angeanguka.”
― Enock Maregesi

“In 1978 zip or postcodes were introduced in the Netherlands; they consist of four numbers followed by a space and then to capital letters and are replaced before the name of the town... they referred to the city block in a given street in which the house occurs and thus the Dutch postal code book is the size of a telephone book.”
― Bruce Donaldson, Dutch: A Comprehensive Grammar

“Something in me - probably a small, nationalist dwarf part of my brain - something in me would like to feel proud of Dutch literature. But its hard to when the annual 'book week gift' year in year out is granted to a male. I dont like being part of an unjust system. But let me say this: it is the election method that is the real problem here. The 'vergadering' (meeting) that employs a simple flagging system - the basic way almost everything is decided here, from literary prizes to how much money is divided - it is a system based on the destruction of subtle values. You cannot ever ever say: I didnt understand this book. You can only say 'yes' or 'no'. And that system, that annihilates all forms of subtlety, that system is patriarchal in all its essence. So its useless to simply maintain the method, and try alter the outcome.”
― Martijn Benders

“At the same time, there flourished around them an equally remarkable, and for us more interesting, defiance of the Calvinist spirit: the art and culture of the Netherlands, in which man’s relation to the world of objects, and to his own physical life, became the subject of a profound spiritual interrogation.”
― Roger Scruton, Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction

“To set the scene: Madzy Brender à Brandis was a young mother with two small children, trying to survive through years of hardship and danger – and some unexpected pleasures. In May 1942, after her husband was suddenly taken prisoner and sent to a German camp, she began writing a diary to record the details of her life – for her husband to read when he returned, if he returned. She called it “this faithful book.” Here are some passages:


28 October 1944 [when the electricity was cut off because of lack of fuel for the generating plants]: “We have to use the daylight to its utmost, and we figure this out already in the morning. [At the end of the afternoon] We flew faster and faster to use the last bits of daylight, lay the table, lay everything ready so that at 5:30 we could eat in the dusk until we couldn’t find our mouths any more. Blackout and one candle, finished eating and washed the dishes. Read to children in pyjamas and then they to bed. Then unraveled a knitted baby blanket [so that the yarn could be used to knit other things] and at 9:00 blew out the candle and continued by moonlight. But now I’m going to bed, tired but satisfied with my efforts, though very sad about all the misery.”


1 November 1944 [after a threat of having the house demolished]: “Well, our house is still standing. I filled a laundry bag with many things, and everything is standing ready [in case there was a need to evacuate]. Because there is much flying again. At one moment an Allied fighter plane flew over very low; just then three German soldiers were walking past our house and one, “as a joke,” shot his gun at the plane. Tje! What a scare we had!”


24 December 1944 [addressing her husband, still in the camp]: “The whole house is in wonderful peace and I’m sitting by the fire, which gives me just enough light to write this. [The upper door of the small heater, when opened, gave a bit of light.] My Dicks, I don’t have to tell you how very much I miss you on this evening. It is a gnawing sense of longing. But beyond that there is a sorrow in me, a despair about everything, that pervades my whole being. Besides that, however, I’ve already for days seen the light of Christ coming closer and in these days that gives me hope. So does the waxing moon, the hard frost, the bright sun – in a word, all the light in nature after that endless series of misty, rainy, dark days. And so I sit close to my unsteady little light, that constantly abandons me, and think of you. It’s as though you are very close to me. I’m so grateful for everything that I have: your love, the two children, and everything around me.”


12 February 1945 [during the “Hunger Winter” of 1944-45, after one of her trips to forage for food]: “Today I went to Rika in Renswoude: 1¼ hours cycling there, 2½ hours walking back pushing a broken-down bicycle and with 25 pounds of rye [the whole grain, not flour] through streaming rain, while there was constant booming of artillery and bombing in the distance.”
― Marianne Brandis, This Faithful Book: A Diary from World War Two in the Netherlands

“Ik zou haar leren dat dit een land is waar alle wegen wagenwijd openstaan, dat het een kwestie van toewijding is om succes te behalen, dat ze geen slachtoffer is, dat het hier een meritocratie is, in tegenstelling tot Turkije en vele andere oorden.”
― Lale Gül, Ik ga leven

“Perhaps Western civilization, with the Amsterdam red-light district as its fetid symbol, does have something to answer for. Maybe these streets are typical of a society without modesty, morally unhinged.”
― Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance

“Islam may soon become the majority religion in countries whose churches have been turned more and more into tourist sites, apartment houses, theaters, and places of entertainment. The French scholar Olivier Roy is right: Islam is now a European religion. How Europeans, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, cope with this is the question that will decide our future. And what better place to watch the drama unfold than the Netherlands, where freedom came from a revolt against Catholic Spain, where ideals of tolerance and diversity became a badge of national honor, and where political Islam struck its first blow against a man whose deepest conviction was that freedom of speech included the freedom to insult.”
― Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance

“Waarom hield zij eigenlijk niet zo van haar moederland? Nederland was toch meer haar vaderland, al durfde ze dat thuis nooit hardop te zeggen. Ze sprak beter Nederlands dan Turks, maakte zoiets uit voor het land dat je je vaderland noemde? Was de taal die je het beste sprak de taal van je vaderland, ook al lag het land van je ouders in een ander werelddeel?”
― Karin Hilterman, Meryem

“Orang-orang Belanda bukan pedagang yang baik. Mereka sangat serakah dan mengambil untuk dirinya sendiri. Kalau Nippon bukan pedagang. Mereka hanya suka membangun jalan, membunuh, dan memerkosa.”
― Felix K. Nesi, Orang-Orang Oetimu

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“The rivalry was so intense that English pamphleteers competed with one another to come up with ever more lurid headlines about the Dutch. (My favourite of these: "The Dutch-mens Pedigree; Or, A Relation Shewing How They Were First Bred and Descended froma Horse-Turd Which Was Enclosed in a Butter-Box.)”
― Russel Shorto