Quotes by Dutch Authors - Page 6

All cows were like other cows, all tigers like all other tigers - What on earth happened to human beings?
Harry Mulisch
[T]he term 'nonhuman' grates on me, since it lumps millions of species together by an absence, as if they were missing something. Poor things, they are nonhuman! When students embrace this jargon in their writing, I cannot resist sarcastic corrections in the margin saying that for completeness's sake, they should add that the animals they are talking about are also nonpenguin, nonhyena, and a whole lot more.
Frans de Waal
I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.
Baruch Spinoza
If Lenin would have had facebook, there would never have been any Russian Revolution. He would have had five followers, a handful of friends, and he'd type frantically into his own bubble. If Hitler would have had facebook, we'd still be plagued by a constant stream of conspiracy sites. Damn, how lucky are we exactly that none of these geezers had facebook and meddled about with the world instead.
Martijn Benders
I am a fool for Christ...whose fool are you?
Brother Andrew
Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself.
Baruch Spinoza
The superstitious know how to reproach people for their vices better than they know how to teach them virtues, and they strive, not to guide men by reason, but to restrain them by fear, so that they flee the evil rather than love virtues. Such people aim only to make others as wretched as they themselves are, so it is no wonder that they are generally burdensome and hateful to men.
Baruch Spinoza
those, who are believed to be most self—abased and humble, are generally in reality the most ambitious and envious
Baruch Spinoza
Nothing forbids man to enjoy himself, save grim and gloomy superstition
Baruch Spinoza
men, in so far as they live in obedience to reason necessarily do only such things as are necessarily good for human nature, and consequently for each individual man.
Baruch Spinoza
Only the ideas penetrate and prevail nothing unless one has the knowledge, to bring that into the practical form; otherwise, buying the ideas, shows one's idiocy.
Ehsan Sehgal
We end up stumbling our way through the forest, never seeing all the unexpected and wonderful possibilities and potentials because we're looking for the idea of a tree, instead of appreciating the actual trees in front of us.
Charles de Lint
What economists and political scientists today call the “rational choice of individuals,” but what Smith called “the individual pursuit of happiness,” leads according to this view in a mechanical way to general welfare. As Alexander Pope in his Essay on Man put it: “true Self Love and Social are the same.” While this is the foundation of liberal capitalism, Marx’s dialectical materialism is not different in its selection of the economy as the prime mover. In this way the economy becomes the most important purpose of society. Fortunately, the economy has laws of causation, or, at least, that is what economists would like us to believe. Statistics are gathered to provide an objectified view of reality that enables social engineering. The individual and the collective are simultaneously put in an economic framework that is secular not in the sense that it is nonreligious, since individuals can rationally pursue religious ends, but in the sense that a God-given order of society has been replaced by an order that is constantly produced by homo economicus” (p. 41).
Peter van der Veer
Van Gogh on his brother's upcoming marriage: "It’s because he’s in Holland, where he’s getting married one of these days. Now, while not denying the advantages of a marriage in the very least, once it has been done and one is quietly set up in one’s home, the funereal pomp of the reception &c., the lamentable congratulations of two families (even civilized) at the same time, not to mention the fortuitous appearances in those pharmacist’s jars where antediluvian civil or religious magistrates sit – my word – isn’t there good reason to pity the poor unfortunate obliged to present himself armed with the requisite papers in the places where, with a ferocity unequalled by the cruellest cannibals, you’re married alive on the low heat of the aforementioned funereal receptions.
Liesbeth Heenk
..it has always been so much my desire to paint for those who don’t know the artistic side of a painting.
Vincent van Gogh
We strolled to the end of the platform. We came to a man with a signal lamp and I saw that as he passed us he looked at a conductor standing on another platform and made a drinking movement with his hand near his mouth. We stopped past the end of the roof and looked at the sun. "You see the sun, Koekebakker?" The sun was especially clear, right in front of us, close by, bigger and redder than I had ever seen it. It almost touched the rails, it didn't flash brightly on things anymore, there was a dull glow only on the frosted windowpanes of the train shed to the right of the track. "You think I'm drunk?" I did indeed. "It doesn't matter, Koekebakker, when I'm sober I don't understand anything anyway.""Do you understand what the sun wants from me? I have thirty-four setting suns leaning against the wall, one on top of the other, all facing the wall. But every evening it's there again.""Unless it's cloudy," I said. But he wouldn't let himself be distracted."Koekebakker, you've always been my best friend. I've known you since--how long has it been?""Thirteen years. That's a long time. You know what you need to do? Do me a favor. You have a hatbox?"I didn't say anything."Put it in a hatbox, Koekebakker. In a hatbox. I want to be left alone. Put it in a hatbox, a plain old hatbox. That's all it's worth."Bavinck blubbered drunkard's tears. I looked around helplessly. A man in a uniform with a yellow stripe on his cap came up to us and spoke to me."I think it would be better, sir, if you took the gentleman home.
Nescio
Koekebakker, I feel so strange inside.' 'Well you certainly smell like jenever,' I said. 'No,' Japi said, ' it's not the jenever. I think my soul is too big.
Nescio
Darling, if I think of all I miss now, I will go crazy. I should not think of that. I only want to think of all that I still have, and then I am rich. Your spirit is always around me, in your diary, our letters, all the things you got for our household. How proud we were of that! And the nearly six years! O God, I thank you for those years. If I never had met you, I would now not have all the sorrow; but I would have missed these riches -- and do these years not abundantly balance the lonely years I face without you?
Diet Eman
Growing up, I'd already decided I wanted to be a beatnik. A Bohemian poet, I thought. Or a musician. Maybe an artist. I'd dress in black turtlenecks and smoke Gitanes. I'd listen to cool jazz in clubs, getting up to read devastating truths from my notebook, leaning against the microphone, cigarette dangling from my hand.
Charles de Lint
The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.
Baruch Spinoza
I don't want to be alone, I want to be left alone.
Audrey Hepburn
If you realise and accept your mistakes, faults and wrong doings, it is the exact way to recognising, getting and finding yourself, when it happens, you are a genius
Ehsan Sehgal
As was the case for Nobel's own invention of dynamite, the uses that are made of increased knowledge can serve both beneficial and potentially harmful ends. Increased knowledge clearly implies increased responsibility.
Nicolaas Bloembergen
I think now that this obsession with identifying racism, which I saw so often among Somalis too, was really a comfort mechanism, to keep people from feeling personally inadequate and to externalize the causes of their unhappiness.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Our honour is that we make the law to violate and break it, and we stay to do that.
Ehsan Sehgal
Privacy’ is an unusable term. We should instead talk about freedom, autonomy and self-determination of the individual. Being allowed to be yourself, to think whatever you want and to act within the law with no hindrance. That resonates with everyone.
Danny Mekić
Knowing nature is part of knowing God. Faith directs us to the invisible God, but leads us back from God to the entire visible world.
Arnold Albert van Ruler
We are to allow one thing to be really and truly distinct from the other, to be its own genuine self. There is a logical and philosophical urge in thinking men to reduce all things to a single unity. But this urge of the natural reason tends to petrify the heart. There is no single essence to which all existing things belong, no single essence which makes all things basically one. The only true unity of created things is the unity created by love. The heart embraces all things in their great variety and the heart loves them all.
Arnold Albert van Ruler
Sleep makes the silence and the terrible fear go by more quickly, helps pass the time, since it's impossible to kill.
Anne Frank
Knowledge (curriculum) and behavior (pedagogy) are embedded in everyone’s core beliefs about the nature of God, humanity, and the world.
Abraham Kuyper
Life is like a film screen: pictures come, make an impression, go, and then make a place for new pictures with new impressions which obscure the previous ones. Some of those old pictures fade, but the impressions they leave will never pass away. Such an impression is the image of Hein Sietsma -- a joyful Christian who loved life so much but was still willing to give it to the great, good, and holy cause.
Diet Eman
Anyway, when sophisticated technology fails, primitive technology steps in to do the job.
Michel Faber
Fear and anxiety affect decision making in the direction of more caution and risk aversion... Traumatized individuals pay more attention to cues of threat than other experiences, and they interpret ambiguous stimuli and situations as threatening (Eyesenck, 1992), leading to more fear-driven decisions. In people with a dissociative disorder, certain parts are compelled to focus on the perception of danger. Living in trauma-time, these dissociative parts immediately perceive the present as being "just like" the past and "emergency" emotions such as fear, rage, or terror are immediately evoked, which compel impulsive decisions to engage in defensive behaviors (freeze, flight, fight, or collapse). When parts of you are triggered, more rational and grounded parts may be overwhelmed and unable to make effective decisions.
Suzette Boon
Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.
Corrie ten Boom
I make sure to always have some spinach between my teeth so people are disinclined to bother me.Survival strategies for the 21st century.
Graham Parke
The weak fall, but the strong will remain and never go under!
Anne Frank
Whenever, wherever, however You want me, I'll go. And I'll begin this very minute. Lord, as I stand up from this place, and as I take my first step forward, will You consider this is a step toward complete obedience to You? I'll call it the step of yes.
Brother Andrew
You can get in anywhere if you go to serve.
Brother Andrew
There is a great difference between one idler and another idler. There is someone who is an idler out of laziness and lack of character, owing to the baseness of his nature. If you like, you may take me for one of those. Then there is the other kind of idler, the idler despite himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action who does nothing because his hands are tied, because he is, so to speak, imprisoned somewhere, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because disastrous circumstances have brought him forcibly to this end. Such a one does not always know what he can do, but he nevertheless instinctively feels, I am good for something! My existence is not without reason! I know that I could be a quite a different person! How can I be of use, how can I be of service? There is something inside me, but what can it be? He is quite another idler. If you like you may take me for one of those.
Vincent van Gogh
I tried always to do better: saw always a little further. I tried to stretch myself.
Audrey Hepburn
Smile fragrances one's reflection of the inner, which inspires others pleasure feeling.
Ehsan Sehgal
It were indeed to be wish'd that our art had been less ingenious, in contriving means destructive to mankind; we mean those instruments of war, which were unknown to the ancients, and have made such havoc among the moderns. But as men have always been bent on seeking each other's destruction by continual wars; and as force, when brought against us, can only be repelled by force; the chief support of war, must, after money, be now sought in chemistry.
Hermann Boerhaave
I was remarkably calm. Calm and fatigued. There would be no violence. It was like a storm coming up. The café chairs are carried inside, the awnings are rolled up, but nothing happens. The storm passes over. And, at the same time, that’s too bad. After all, we would all rather see the roofs ripped from the houses, the trees uprooted and tossed through the air.
Herman Koch
Each subject perceives and instigates the violence within the philosophy of nonviolence since injustice, hatred and such conduct hold the feeling of violence, even changing the system, first, passes the violence before it prevails. Despite that, violence also exists, in one's thoughts, without exception; however, the question is not the violence, but self-control that demonstrates the peace, which approaches the victory and supremacy.
Ehsan Sehgal
If faith makes people buy an entire package of myths and values without asking too many questions, scientists are only slightly better.
Frans de Waal
Trying Will Not Lead Into Actions, You Have To Do It
Marieke Stoop
Happiness Is When Your Heart and Soul Are Walking Hand In Hand
Marieke Stoop
The Essence Of Success Is Leading Your Business & Life From The Heart
Marieke Stoop
At that time I also had, for a short while, the strength to bear it. But all too soon I lost external sight of the shape of that beautiful man, and I saw him disappear to nothing, so quickly melting away and fusing together that I could not see or observe him outside of me, nor discern him within me. It was to me at that moment as if we were one without distinction.
Hadewijch
The Church is larger than any one nation or any one political scene.
Brother Andrew
I experienced one of the common miracles of the Christian life. Our spirits recognized each other.
Brother Andrew
Persecution is an enemy the Church has met and mastered many times. Indifference could prove to be a far more dangerous foe.
Brother Andrew
This leaves us with the urgent question: How can we be or become a caring community, a community of people not trying to cover the pain or to avoid it by sophisticated bypasses, but rather share it as the source of healing and new life? It is important to realize that you cannot get a Ph.D. in caring, that caring cannot be delegated by specialists, and that therefore nobody can be excused from caring. Still, in a society like ours, we have a strong tendency to refer to specialists. When someone does not feel well, we quickly think, 'Where can we find a doctor?' When someone is confused, we easily advise him to go to a counselor. And when someone is dying, we quickly call a priest. Even when someone wants to pray we wonder if there is a minister around.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
One must live with all, e'en if life be hell: Crime makes shame, not monetary stricture
Multatuli
What to describe patience, how to check that? One may balance its anger, desire, feeling and burden of waiting, which show the routine attitude that one can adopt. However, the real test of one's patience appears when a naked woman invites in front of it; one ignores and avoids, to respond and react since that grasps the significant and substantial patience; it verifies that.
Ehsan Sehgal
A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Solitude is the furnace in which transformation takes place.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
The measure of your solitude is the measure of your capacity for communion.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Intimacy between people requires closeness as well as distance. It is like dancing. Sometimes we are very close, touching each other or holding each other; sometimes we move away from each other and let the space between us become an area where we can freely move.To keep the right balance between closeness and distance requires hard work, especially since the needs of the partners may be quite different at a given moment. One might desire closeness while the other wants distance. One might want to be held while the other looks for independence. A perfect balance seldom occurs, but the honest and open search for that balance can give birth to a beautiful dance, worthy to behold.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
One of the reasons that hiddenness is such an important aspect of the spiritual life is that it keeps us focused on God. In hiddenness we do not receive human acclamation, admiration, support, or encouragement. In hiddenness we have to go to God with our sorrows and joys and trust that God will give us what we most need.In our society we are inclined to avoid hiddenness. We want to be seen and acknowledged. We want to be useful to others and influence the course of events. But as we become visible and popular, we quickly grow dependent on people and their responses and easily lose touch with God, the true source of our being. Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.
Henri J.M. Nouwen