Quotes by Dutch Authors

During the persecutions under the Emperor Domitian, John was summoned to Rome, where he was tortured by immersion in a pot of boiling oil and subsequently banished to the island of Patmos in the Aegean sea. It was there he wrote his Apocalypse. It was only after the death of Domitian, in A.D. 96, that he returned to Ephesus, where he was still living during the reign of the Emperor Trajan (A.D. 98-117). He became so old and frail that he could no longer walk and had to be carried to meetings and services. All he could manage to say was, "My little children, love one another." He repeated this over and over.
Gilles Quispel
The various worms eat one's body after its death; conversely, cancer cells eat one's body, when it breathes, since the failure of medical research.
Ehsan Sehgal
Regrets... Regrets are bootless. A vain trick of the mind. An impotent raging against what cannot be changed anyway. A distraction from the moment.
Andrew Ashling
There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even—the French air clears up the brain and does good—a world of good.
Vincent van Gogh
When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith.
Abraham Kuyper
For us the chief point of interest is the place where the game is played. Generatly it is a simple circle, dyutamandalam, drawn on the ground. The circle as such, however, has a magic significance. It is drawn with great care, all sorts of precautions being taken against cheating. The players are not allowed to leave the ring until they have discharged their obligations. But, sometimes a special hall is provisionally erected for the game, and this hall is holy ground. The Mahabharata devotes a whole chapter to the erection of the dicing hall - sabha - where the Pandavas are to meet their prtners. Games, of chance, therefore, have their serious side. They are included in ritual.
Johan Huizinga
Our point of departure must be the conception of an almost childlike play-sense expressing itself in various play-forms, some serious, some playful, but all rooted in ritual and productive of culture by allowing the innate human need of rhythm, harmony, change, alternation, contrast and climax, etc., to unfold in full richness.
Johan Huizinga
For us the chief point of interest is the place where the game is played. Generally it is a simple circle, dyutamandalam, drawn on the ground. The circle as such, however, has a magic significance. It is drawn with great care, all sorts of precautions being taken against cheating. The players are not allowed to leave the ring until they have discharged their obligations. But, sometimes a special hall is provisionally erected for the game, and this hall is holy ground. The Mahabharata devotes a whole chapter to the erection of the dicing hall - sabha - where the Pandavas are to meet their prtners. Games, of chance, therefore, have their serious side. They are included in ritual.
Johan Huizinga
One is too precious about the past, the other too hungry for the future. One arm being dragged into the past by the ethics of historic preservation, the other being yanked towards a hopeful (bigger, brighter, better) future.
Winy Maas
We can always get along better by reason and love of truth than by worry of conscience and remorse. Harmful are these and evil.
Baruch Spinoza
We have to fight them daily like fleas those many small worries about the morrow for they sap our energies.
Etty Hillesum
Worry is like racing the engine of an automobile without letting in the clutch.
Corrie ten Boom
Worry is like a rocking chair-it keeps you moving but doesn't get you anywhere.
Corrie ten Boom
He who shuns the millstone shuns the meal.
Erasmus
It's as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint it. There is the art of lines and colours but the art of words exists too and will never be less important.
Vincent van Gogh
Not to know certain things is a great part of wisdom.
Hugo Grotius
Great things are not done by impulse but by a series of small things brought together.
Vincent van Gogh
Concealed talent brings no reputation.
Erasmus
A state is a perfect body of free men united together to enjoy common rights and advantages.
Hugo Grotius
The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
There is a master key to success with which no man can fail. Its name is simplicity ... reducing to the simplest possible terms every problem.
Henri Deterding
Prevention is better than cure.
Erasmus
Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.
Anne Frank
Do not weep do not wax indignant. Understand.
Baruch Spinoza
It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.
Erasmus
The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.
Vincent van Gogh
Do not commit the error common among the young of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind you have failed.
Jan de Hartog
Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.
Corrie ten Boom
Praying is learned by praying.
L. A. T. van Dooren
Great things are not something accidental but must certainly be willed.
Vincent van Gogh
Think of all the beauty that's still left in and around you and be happy!
Anne Frank
I keep my ideals because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Anne Frank
Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can bel How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is I
Anne Frank
Peace is not an absence of war it is a virtue a state of mind a disposition for benevolence confidence justice.
Benedict Spinoza
God made the ocean but the Dutch made Holland.
Dutch proverb
A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
Dutch proverb
I dream my painting and then I paint my dream.
Vincent van Gogh
There is no hope unmingled with fear and no fear unmingled with hope.
Baruch Spinoza
Our desire must be like a slow and stately ship sailing across endless oceans never in search of safe anchorage. Then suddenly unexpectedly it will find mooring for a moment.
Etty Hillesum
It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.
Erasmus
Do not commit the error common among the young of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind you have failed.
Jan de Hartog
Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.
Corrie ten Boom
Praying is learned by praying.
L. A. T. van Dooren
Great things are not something accidental but must certainly be willed.
Vincent van Gogh
Think of all the beauty that's still left in and around you and be happy!
Anne Frank
I keep my ideals because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Anne Frank
Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can bel How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is I
Anne Frank
Peace is not an absence of war it is a virtue a state of mind a disposition for benevolence confidence justice.
Benedict Spinoza
God made the ocean but the Dutch made Holland.
Dutch proverb
A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
Dutch proverb
I dream my painting and then I paint my dream.
Vincent van Gogh
There is no hope unmingled with fear and no fear unmingled with hope.
Baruch Spinoza
Our desire must be like a slow and stately ship sailing across endless oceans never in search of safe anchorage. Then suddenly unexpectedly it will find mooring for a moment.
Etty Hillesum
We all live with the objective of being happy our lives are all different and yet the same.
Anne Frank
To be what we are and to become what we are capable of becoming is the only end of life.
Baruch Spinoza
In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
Erasmus
To marry once is a duty twice a folly thrice is madness.
Dutch proverb
One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever comes to sit by it.
Vincent van Gogh
No one is to be despaired of as long as he breathes. (While there is life there is hope.)
Erasmus
Will and intellect are one and the same thing.
Spinoza