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The Netherlands Quotes

Browse 21 quotes about The Netherlands.

The Netherlands Quotes

“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.”

ReadingEducationThe Netherlands
Book:Brieven aan Miyo: Over het lezen van de klassieken met kinderen
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“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.”

RacismSlaveryBigotryDutchDonald TrumpThe NetherlandsThe HagueDutch MonarchyWilhelminaGolden Coach
Book:Roses in the Rainbow
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“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.”

The Netherlands
Book:Anti-Machiavel
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“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.”

WwiiThe NetherlandsNescioAmsterdam StoriesInsula Dei
Book:Amsterdam Stories
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