The Netherlands Quotes

“One would expect Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, who is said to have studied history, to know better and act better, but he too rejects all advice and criticism and runs around obliviously in a coach plastered with pictures of his grandmother abusing her captives, including women and children. You might imagine the bigoted Donald Trump to be riding a coach like that in a mock presidential parade in his dreams, but certainly not a twenty first century Dutch royal. I wonder if he ever considered how their Calvinist pomposity affected the psyche of black and white children.”
― Mawuena Addo, Roses in the Rainbow

“and pause to record the width
of sullen in this empty night
how autumn needs dark
to layer thick blankets of foliage”
― Sneha Subramanian Kanta

“How could the eagle-eyed politicians of The Hague, who specialized in pointing out the tiniest specks in other people’s eyes, overlook someone riding a racist coach in their own neighborhood?”
― Mawuena Addo, Roses in the Rainbow

“How remorseless must one be find pleasure in riding a Wilhelmina golden coach in the 21st century.”
― Mawuena Addo, Roses in the Rainbow

“Nobody would be riding a racist Wilhelmina golden coach today in The Hague if the Dutch hadn’t swept unpleasant aspects of their history under the rug.”
― Mawuena Addo, Roses in the Rainbow

“Bigotry is what you get when you substitute the illusion of holiness for fair-minded enquiry.”
― Mawuena Addo, Roses in the Rainbow

“Bigotry will always find a way where people are kept in a bubble of ignorance.”
― Mawuena Addo

“There is hardly any other country that got as filthy rich through human trafficking and slave trade as the Netherlands.”
― Mawuena Addo, Roses in the Rainbow

“Did you know that even 50 years after all other countries had abolished slavery, the Netherlands refused to?”
― Mawuena Addo, Roses in the Rainbow

“Just as the Netherlands was the last country to abolish slavery, they are still the last one opulently celebrating racism; the English had to force the Dutch to abolish slavery in the late 19th century and now the US and the UN are forcing them to stop celebrating bigotry in the 21st century”
― Mawuena Addo, Roses in the Rainbow

“MUSEUMS OF INFAMY
A dynasty that thrived on
And blatantly celebrates
Racism and anti-Semitism
Belongs not to the 21st century
But the throes of history
In the museums of infamy
Under the banner ‘House of Orange”
― Mawuena Addo

“Compare Holland with Russia; you see only marshy and sterile islands in the former, which rise from the center of the ocean: a small republic which is only 48 miles length by 40 wide. But this small body is the very nerve-center of the region: immense people live in it, and these industrious people are both powerful and rich. They shook the yoke of the Spanish domination, which was then the most formidable monarchy of Europe. The trade of this republic extends to the ends of the world; and new trade appears almost immediately; it can maintain in times of war an army fifty thousand men, without counting a many and well maintained fleet.”
― Frederick the Great, Anti-Machiavel

“It is worse than at Syria, Turkey and Russia. Great. I will be glad, very glad, when I will live in another country about a couple of years.”
― Petra Hermans

“and think of dual reverberations
in a forest: insects and bamboo
with wild lilies amid thick drops
of snow, then dream in white”
― Sneha Subramanian Kanta

“enter an orchard before autumn
dots the entire land and taste
the tangerine inside a pumpkin.”
― Sneha Subramanian Kanta

“God was good that afternoon, and merciful. His world came in through our eyes and lived in our heads, and our thoughts went wordlessly out across the world, far beyond the horizon they went.

- Out Along the Ij”
― Nescio, Amsterdam Stories

“It's just a game to God, he is everywhere and without end. He just calls.

- Young Titans”
― Nescio, Amsterdam Stories

“I can't [stay out of the ocean], or just barely," Bavink said. " It's so strange having that melancholy sound behind you. It's like the Ocean wants something from me, that's what it's like. God is in there too. God is calling."

- Young Titans”
― Nescio, Amsterdam Stories

“She wants to work, not think. But I don't believe she'll ever stifle her soul. Those dear to God's heart above all others have to bear that burden to the end.”
― Nescio, Amsterdam Stories

“But these aren’t the first eventful times I have lived through and if I’m granted even more years then with God’s help I will most likely get to my third war. The silent course of things takes its silent, implacable course, the little man who is a hero today will tomorrow, when peace comes, be scolded in his stupid little job or maybe won’t have a job at all and will turn back into the useless piece of clockwork he used to be. And if he has a little more to him, maybe he will read the first chapter of Ecclesiastes: “All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it.”

Eventful times. What remains from Italy’s eventful times in the thirteenth century except Dante’s Inferno?

Do. As if I haven’t had enough pointless doing. Oh they have nothing else, they only are when they do. I want to be, and for me to do is: not to be.”
― Nescio, Amsterdam Stories

“Als je kinderen wereldwijd rangschikt op leesplezier, dan bungelen Nederlandse kinderen ergens onderaan. Ik denk dat ik wel weet hoe dat komt. We zeggen tegen kinderen dat het niet uitmaakt wat ze lezen, als ze maar lezen. Maar als het niet uitmaakt wat je leest, dan maakt het eigenlijk ook niet uit dát je leest. We brengen kinderen niets van schoonheid bij als het om literatuur gaat.”
― Martin Bootsma, Brieven aan Miyo: Over het lezen van de klassieken met kinderen