Quotes by Dutch Authors - Page 16

No, it was simply that I was uninterested in making, as I saw it, a Xerox of some old emotional state. I was in my mid-thirties, with a marriage more or less behind me. I was no longer vulnerable to curiosity's enormous momentum. I had nothing new to murmur to another on the subject of myself and not the smallest eagerness about being briefed on Danielle's supposedly unique trajectory—a curve described under the action, one could safely guess, of the usual material and maternal and soulful longings, a few thwarting tics of character, and luck good and bad. A life seemed like an old story.
Joseph O'Neill
A while ago?” Anaxantis asked. “Yes, he raped me a while ago. Exactly nine months and two days ago. What's that? Nine months or nine minutes. It's the same. And it is in the past, you say? Then why is it still happening, every day, every time I close my eyes? Every time I hear someone behind me, and I don't know who it is? How is it that I get an almost irresistible urge to kill anyone who happens to touch me unexpectedly? Tell me, Hemarchidas, how do I forgive, let alone forget, something that is still happening, that keeps happening over and over? How? How do I do that?
Andrew Ashling
It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.
Vincent van Gogh
My great longing is to learn to make those very incorrectnesses, those deviations, remodellings, changes of reality, so that they may become, yes, untruth if you like - but more true than the literal truth.
Vincent van Gogh
And the memories of all we have loved stay and come back to us in the evening of our life. They are not dead but sleep, and it is well to gather a treasure of them.
Vincent van Gogh
To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life
Vincent van Gogh
He is your friend who pushes you nearer to God.
Abraham Kuyper
How shortsighted and how uncultured, then, are the efforts of believers in Christ when they seek for snatches of worldly culture for themselves by placing themselves, as they think, on common ground with those who are not believers in Christ. How dishonoring to their Christ if they allow that any culture endures unless it be because of the power of his resurrection in the world. If you have been taken out of the miry clay, do you jump back into it because of some glistening objects that you see in it? Do you run back into the house now almost burned to the ground in order to save your silverware? It is only those who are believers in Christ that will inherit the earth and all the fulness thereof.
Cornelius Van Til
Like many highly educated people, I didn't have much in the way of actual skills.
J. Maarten Troost
Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance.
Hendrik Willem van Loon
The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth
Erasmus
Falsity consists in the privation of knowledge, which inadequate, fragmentary, or confused ideas involve.
Baruch Spinoza
He who, while unacquainted with these writings, nevertheless knows by the natural light that there is a God having the attributes we have recounted, and who also pursues a true way of life, is altogether blessed.
Baruch Spinoza
Every person should embrace those [dogmas] that he, being the best judge of himself, feels will do most to strengthen in him love of justice.
Baruch Spinoza
Try to put well into practice what you already know. In so doing, you will, in good time, discover the hidden things you now inquire about.
Rembrandt
Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
Baruch Spinoza
I believe that we do not know anything for certain, but everything probably.
Christiaan Huygens
Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.
Vincent van Gogh
And so seated next to my father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, "Father, what is sexsin?"He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case off the floor and set it on the floor.Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?" he said.I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning.It's too heavy," I said.Yes," he said, "and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger, you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.
Corrie ten Boom
Gods were preserved but languages were exterminated: thus was the conqueror’s will
Belcampo
On the exoteric level the traditions are irreconcilable. On the esoteric, experiential level of the heart reigns an eloquent, reverential silence.
Frederick Franck
Infuriatingly stupid analysts - especially people who called themselves Arabists, yet who seemed to know next to nothing about the reality of the Islamic world - wrote reams of commentary [after 9/11]. Their articles were all about Islam saving Aristotle and the zero, which medieval Muslim scholars had done more than eight hundred years ago; about Islam being a religion of peace and tolerance, not the slightest bit violent. These were fairy tales, nothing to do with the real world I knew.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
...Bin Laden's quotes from the Quaran resonated in my brain: "When you meet the unbelievers, strike them in the neck." "If you do not go out and fight, God will punish you severely and put others in your place." "Wherever you find the polytheists, kill them, seize them, besiege them, ambush them." "You who believe, do not take the Jews and Christians as friends; they are allies only to each other. Anyone who takes them as an ally becomes one of them.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians.
Erasmus
The morning after the 9/11 attacks...we began talking about the Twin Towers attack. Ruud shook his head sadly about it all. He said, "It's so weird, isn't it, all these people saying this has to do with Islam?" I couldn't help myself...I blurted out, "But it *is* about Islam. This is based in belief. This is Islam." Ruud said, "Ayaan, of course these people may have been Muslims, but they are a lunatic fringe. We have extremist Christians, too, who interpret the bible literally. Most Muslims do not believe these things. To say so is to disparage a faith which is the second largest religion in the world, and which is civilized, and peaceful." I walked into the office thinking, "I have to wake these people up."...The Dutch had forgotten that it was possible for people to stand up and wage war, destroy property, imprison, kill, impose laws of virtue because of the call of God. That kind of religion hadn't been present in Holland for centuries. It was not a lunatic fringe who felt this way about America and the West. I knew that a vast mass of Muslims would see the attacks as justified retaliation against the infidel enemies of Islam.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
We have to live a life that is more revolutionary than that of the revolutionaries.
Brother Andrew
I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream.
Vincent van Gogh
I dream my painting and I paint my dream.
Vincent van Gogh
I read and write for character. If I like and can relate to the characters in a story I can enjoy any kind of story. I also want something with a definitive plot—you know, beginning, middle and end--that has forward motion. I don’t like series books that leave you hanging after you’ve finished a book and in my own fiction I try to make sure that there’s always an entry point for those who are new to the book as well as long-time readers.
Charles de Lint
As I repeatedly went forth with him and began to understand the ignorance and contradictions and language difficulties with which he contended, and the doubtful sources of his information and the seemingly bottomless history and darkness out of which the dishes of New York emerge, the deeper grew my suspicion that his work finally consisted of minting or perpetuating and in any event circulating misconceptions about his subject and in this way adding to the endless perplexity of the world.
Joseph O'Neill
People who read your ideas tend to think that your writings reflect your life.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
The desire to write grows with writing.
Erasmus
I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.
Anne Frank
Even if dogma has a purpose, it can never function as a substitute for faith, only as a dry aspect of it.
Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Manifest in this trade (commercial sale of indulgences via bankers) at the same time was a pernicious tendency in the Roman Catholic system, for the trade in indulgences was not an excess or an abuse but the direct consequence of the nomistic degradation of the gospel. That the Reformation started with Luther’s protest against this traffic in indulgences proves its religious origin and evangelical character. At issue here was nothing less than the essential character of the gospel, the core of Christianity, the nature of true piety. And Luther was the man who, guided by experience in the life of his own soul, again made people understand the original and true meaning of the gospel of Christ. Like the “righteousness of God,” so the term “penitence” had been for him one of the most bitter words of Holy Scripture. But when from Romans 1:17 he learned to know a “righteousness by faith,” he also learned “the true manner of penitence.” He then understood that the repentance demanded in Matthew 4:17 had nothing to do with the works of satisfaction required in the Roman institution of confession, but consisted in “a change of mind in true interior contrition” and with all its benefits was itself a fruit of grace. In the first seven of his ninety-five theses and further in his sermon on “Indulgences and Grace” (February 1518), the sermon on “Penitence” (March 1518), and the sermon on the “Sacrament of Penance” (1519), he set forth this meaning of repentance or conversion and developed the glorious thought that the most important part of penitence consists not in private confession (which cannot be found in Scripture) nor in satisfaction (for God forgives sins freely) but in true sorrow over sin, in a solemn resolve to bear the cross of Christ, in a new life, and in the word of absolution, that is, the word of the grace of God in Christ. The penitent arrives at forgiveness of sins, not by making amends (satisfaction) and priestly absolution, but by trusting the word of God, by believing in God’s grace. It is not the sacrament but faith that justifies. In that way Luther came to again put sin and grace in the center of the Christian doctrine of salvation. The forgiveness of sins, that is, justification, does not depend on repentance, which always remains incomplete, but rests in God’s promise and becomes ours by faith alone.
Herman Bavinck
But if I could just get som ehint, some sign..." Conchita smiles, without humor, but with great affection. "That's the point behind faith," she says. "It's not something you can prove....I know you hate to hear this, but you either have it, or you don't.
Charles de Lint
But miracles are not for the asking; they come only when the stern eyes of God droop shut for a moment, and Our Lady takes advantage of His inattention to grant an illicit mercy. God...is an Anglican, whereas Our Lady is of the True Faith; the two of Them have an uneasy relationship, unable to agree on anything, except that if They divorce, the Devil will leap gleefully into the breach.
Michel Faber
Addiction" might be the best word to explain the lostness that so deeply permeates society. Our addiction make us cling to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment: accumulation of wealth and power; attainment of status and admiration; lavish consumption of food and drink, and sexual gratification without distinguishing between lust and love. These addictions create expectations that cannot but fail to satisfy our deepest needs. As long as we live within the world's delusions, our addictions condemn us to futile quests in "the distant country," leaving us to face an endless series of disillusionments while our sense of self remains unfulfilled. In these days of increasing addictions, we have wandered far away from our Father's home. The addicted life can aptly be designated a life lived in "a distant country." It is from there that our cry for deliverance rises up.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
when we are powerless to do a thing, it is a great joy that we can come and step inside the ability of Jesus
Corrie ten Boom
This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.
Corrie ten Boom
Onwetend van dit alles maakte ik eind vorige eeuw mijn entree in dit discours door aan een tijdschrift te vertellen dat poëzie volgens mij entertainment is. Als iemand dat platvloers vindt, voegde ik er behulpzaam aan toe, had hij volgens mij een te lage dunk van entertainment.
Ingmar Heytze
Ik weet nietof er woorden bestaandie de geur van je huidkunnen vangen, het beweeglijkelicht in je ogen, de warmtedie in me opspringt zodraje me aanraakt, het rullegevoel van je haaraan mijn vingertoppen,de bloemblaadjestere huidvan je oogleden tegenmijn lippen.Als daar woorden voor waren,kon ik alles snelvastleggen op papiervoor als je er niet bent(en dat is dikwijls).
Hanny Michaelis
Ik vind het doodzonde van mijn tijd om me te verdiepen in de organische geesteswoekeringen van een dichter die me niets beters te melden heeft dan het niets, de leegte, het onverstaanbare. Het onverstaanbare heb ik thuis ook, als ik door de WC-deur heen probeer te praten met mijn vriendin. Het onzegbare, dat roeren wij thuis door de muesli. Ik wil poëzie die me meeneemt naar een wereld die ik nog niet ken, naar een inzicht dat ik nog niet had, naar een uitzicht dat ik nergens anders had kunnen vinden. Ik wil een gedicht dat zo goed is, dat ik bijna vergeet dat het, zoals elk gedicht, een taalbouwsel is – een volmaakt bedrieglijke travestie waar het grote niets doorheen schijnt, een van zijn eigen leugenachtigheid getuigende leugen van inkt. Ik wil een gedicht als een huis, dat me op één steen na laat geloven dat ik er werkelijk in zou kunnen wonen.
Ingmar Heytze
Alles wat ik van het leven weet maakte ik me buiten de muren van de school eigen, en zodra ik me binnen die muren bevond leek het of ik achterwaarts leefde.
Gerrit Komrij
...and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?
Vincent van Gogh
To show others, the quotes and sayings of the visionary figures, as a mirror instead of reform own conduct and character, indicates one's worst egoism unless that reflects and demonstrates not their golden words.
Ehsan Sehgal
I started this dirty quote business when I noticed that I only tend to read authors when their quotes convince me of wit and style. In a world overflowing with bad literature and corrupted product-placement critics the only weapon one has is either word of mouth or quotes, and me I highly prefer the latter. So I have just decided that I will only post to facebook through goodreads quotes. That's policy that makes a lot of sense for a writer.
Martijn Benders
Riuscirò anch'io a realizzare i miei sogni? C'è un piccolo burrone tra la realtà e i sogni, il problema è riuscire a oltrepassarlo senza caderci dentro, a volte diventa difficile e si viene risucchiati dal mondo.
Sara Dardikh
Non so per quale motivo, ma con lui mi escono dalla bocca tutti i pensieri che tengo rinchiusi nel mio cervello.
Sara Dardikh
Ha dato tutto per scontato, ha dato per scontato che fossero solo parole dette a caso senza fare lo sforzo di ascoltare e capire. Le parole non sono solo lettere, le parole fanno male e rendono felici allo stesso tempo.
Sara Dardikh
Sono dovuta annegare migliaia di volte prima di risalire in superficie.
Sara Dardikh
Amo stare da sola : io, i miei libri e i miei pennelli, lontana dal resto della gente che trovo sempre inutile.
Sara Dardikh
L'essere notata non mi va a genio, questo mi pare chiaro.
Sara Dardikh
Lui continua a scusarsi e a elencarmi la sua lista di problemi, senza rendersi conto che il vero problema non sono la scuola o gli amici o chissà. Il problema sono i ricordi. Nessuno di noi due parla di lei da anni ormai, perché fa sempre male ricordare. Ma io mi domando : fa più male ricordare o fingere di non ricordare?
Sara Dardikh
To me, quotes function as the sunscreen against a writers brilliance. As soon as I cannot stand to look at the magnificence of the acropolis of pure thought the writer managed to doll out in the cognizant chaos - I quote him, and by doing so I am discharged and freed. On the other hand, even while I do acknowledge that some things cannot be quoted, I vehemently distrust any writer whose army of quotes does not consist of impeccable warriors but the sort of bootless canon fodder that caused one to write in the first place, wishing to circumlocute that strappant lot. No writer can ever recover from bad quotes. I check the army of quotes, and if it has no sporting chance against a simple pack of butter then I will simply never ever read this person. One often hears short stories are the benchmark of great writers, but if you ask me, I'd rather first look at their quotes.
Martijn Benders
There is too much pain in the world,in all shapes and forms.That is what these people represent.Pain from losing their homes,the death of a loved one,failing an exam,having a leg amputated,not getting a resident permit after years of hoping for a better life...That's what binds them,That's what they potray.Pain.
Esther Verhoef
Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering – for us. And calling us to share in God’s suffering love for a hurting world. The small and even overpowering pains of our lives are intimately connected with the greater pains of Christ. Our daily sorrows are anchored in a greater sorrow and therefore a larger hope.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
I found it idiotically distressing that a sharp finger whistle could no longer summon them outdoors into a playful twilight. An ancient discovery was now mine to make: to leave is to make nothing less than a mortal action. The suspicion came to me for the fist time that they were figures of my dreaming, like the loved dead: my mother and all these vanished boys. And after Mama's cremation I could not rid myself of the notion that she had been placed in the furnace of memory even when alive and, by extension, that one's dealings with others, ostensibly vital, at a certain point become dealings with the dead.
Joseph O'Neill
La tristesse durera toujours.]
Vincent van Gogh
De bomen komen uit de gronden uit hun stam de twijgen.En iedereen vindt het heel gewoondat zij weer bladeren krijgen.We zien ze vallen naar de gronden dan opnieuw weer groeien.Zo heeft de aarde ons geleerddat al wat sterft zal bloeien.
Toon Hermans