Quotes & Sayings About Going Dutch

People say 'Why would you learn Dutch? Nobody speaks it. Why not French?' Even the Dutch say that to me! I say because I want to live here, I think it's only common courtesy that I speak the language. — Anthony Geary

Though [Charles Guignebert] could not accept either the Christ myth theory, which held that no historical Jesus existed, or the Dutch Radical denial that Paul authored any of the epistles, Guignebert took both quite seriously. — Robert M. Price

For liberalism is a delicate thing. It encompasses so much
constitutional government, democratic elections, freedom of worship, civil rights, free trade
that we think of it as timeless and universal. But liberalism came into being in a real place and time, like a flame it has wavered in various eras, and it can be snuffed out. — Russell Shorto

Dutch liberator William the Silent: "It is not necessary to hope in order to undertake; it is not necessary to succeed in order to persevere. — Clara Claiborne Park

The residence of the Plymouth settlers in the Netherlands, and the later conquest of the Dutch colonies, had brought the Americans into contact with the singularly wise and free institutions of the Dutch. — Albert Bushnell Hart

Dutch prisons are probably the most civilized you're going to find anywhere in the world. — Paul Watson

Dreams are powerful. It is possible to so attach our emotions to them that a dream can become a taskmaster we serve, rather than an assignment or goal we steward. — Dutch Sheets

In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. — Richard Lindzen

Many well-meaning Dutch people have told me in all earnestness that nothing in Islamic culture incites abuse of women, that this is just a terrible misunderstanding. Men all over the world beat their women, I am constantly informed. In reality, these Westerners are the ones who misunderstand Islam. The Quaran mandates these punishments. It gives a legitimate basis for abuse, so that the perpetrators feel no shame and are not hounded by their conscience of their community. I wanted my art exhibit to make it difficult for people to look away from this problem. I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Bolkenstein, a Minister, was speaking on the Dutch programme from London, and he said that they ought to make a collection of diaries and letters after the war. Of course, they all made a rush at my diary immediately. Just imagine how interesting it would be if I were to publish a romance of the "Secret Annexe." The title alone would be enough to make people think it was a detective story. — Anne Frank

Scheffer said a new ethnic underclass of immigrants had formed, and it was much too insular, rejecting the values that knit together Dutch society and creating new, damaging social divisions. There wasn't enough insistence on immigrants adapting; teachers even questioned the relevance of teaching immigrant children Dutch history, and a whole generation of these children were being written off under a pretence of tolerance. Scheffer said there was no place in Holland for a culture that rejected the separation of church and state and denied rights to women and homosexuals. He foresaw social unrest. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Call yourself "Colonel" and declare that your fortune was left to you by Dutch burghers from the seventeenth century. Now you're a solid citizen, the embodiment of hard work and rugged individualism. You're no criminal. The criminal is the guy who comes up short, who gets caught, who fails to adopt a respectable cover. — Luc Sante

Its particular interest for Ian, however, lay in its thesis about the history of the Dutch relationship to windmills, for it emphasized that these early industrial objects had originally been felt to have all the pylons' threateningly alien qualities, rather than the air of enchantment and playfulness now routinely associated with them. They had been denounced from pulpits and occasionally burnt to the ground by suspicious villagers. — Alain De Botton

What use is it to endure the Dutch Rubs and Indian Rope Burns that are politics if you can't obtain mastery over people and give them noogies back? — P. J. O'Rourke

The English also had a reputation, shared with the Dutch, for blowing up their ships to avoid capture. In 1611, for instance, the Spanish Admiral Don Pedro de toledo captured a Turkish pirate ship, but its English consort, 'being wont to seek a voluntary death rather than yield, blew up their ship when they saw resistance useless'. Blowing up their ships, or at least threatening to do so, would become standard pirate practice. — Peter Earle

A single decision by the chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell has a greater impact on the health of the planet than all the coffee-ground-composting, organic-cotton-wearing ecofreaks gathering in Washington D.C., for Earth Day festivities this weekend. — Sharon Begley

Like Abraham you will believe, like Sarah you will conceive, and like Moses you will rise from your isolation and exile. You will live again. God is determined to reverse your tragedy into transformation and crown your tomb with the testimony of a glorious resurrection. From — Dutch Sheets

I can't wait for the next fad though, and I predict it's going to be Pennsylvania dutch culture, very Amish. It's going to be bonnets and butter churns. — Janeane Garofalo

I think it's probably the Dutch who are to blame for starting the whole 'art business', because before they came along, art was attached to relatively stable structures, and it was everybody's. It was like going to the movies. — Antony Gormley

God is going to take over the White House ... He is going to take over the Oval Office ... because it belongs to Him and He is going to bring all things summed up into the fullness of Christ. He is going to take that Supreme Court. He is going to turn that inside out. He is going to pray that strong man off that thing and He is going to bring the synergistic anointing of intercession and the prophetic anointing to break, to judge, to decree ... I will march into that place and declare a decree the word of the Lord boldly ... He is joining the kingly and the priestly anointing. — Dutch Sheets

The English language is an arsenal of weapons; if you are going to brandish them without checking to see whether or no they are loaded you must expect to have them explode in your face from time to time. "Poppycock" means "soft shit" - from the Dutch, I need scarcely remind you, pappe kak. — Stephen Fry

Life is a series of changes - a process of going from the old to the new - from chronos to kairos. Growth, change, revival - all are processes. Life is connected. Not understanding this, we tend to despise the chronos times of preparing, sowing, believing and persevering. Our preference is to always live in the kairos times of fresh and strategic opportunities. — Dutch Sheets

My wife is Dutch and very independent. She never wanted or needed to be married. — Julio Iglesias

The Dutch were among the earliest adopters of a new technology - the printed book - and — Russell Shorto

In passing I draw attention to another English expression which often occurs in Dutch texts: "the real world". In Dutch - and I am afraid not in Dutch alone - its usage is almost always a symptom of a violent anti-intellectualism. — Edsger Dijkstra

The structure of the corporation is a telling case in point - and it is no coincidence that the first major joint-stock corporations in the world were the English and Dutch East India companies, ones that pursued that very same combination of exploration, conquest, and extraction as did the conquistadors. It is a structure designed to eliminate all moral imperatives but profit. The executives who make decisions can argue - and regularly do - that, if it were their own money, of course they would not fire lifelong employees a week before retirement, or dump carcinogenic waste next to schools. Yet they are morally bound to ignore such considerations, because they are mere employees whose only responsibility is to provide the maximum return on investment — David Graeber

The Dutch film industry is a pretty small community, so within Holland, I think most actors know each other and have worked with each other. — Michiel Huisman

My idol was Johann Cruyff (a Dutch soccer player) and I wanted to be like him. But when I realized that I would never be, I decided to do something else. I met the kitchen by chance and quickly became completely enamoured by it. — Ferran Adria

I know I've got a lock on the Dutch Hall of Fame. — Bert Blyleven

At first the rebels seemed to play the role of Don Quixote, courageously tilting at invincible windmills. Yet within eighty years the Dutch had not only secured their independence from Spain, but had managed to replace the Spaniards and their Portuguese allies as masters of the ocean highways, build a global Dutch empire, and become the richest state in Europe. The secret of Dutch success was credit. The — Yuval Noah Harari

I point at Drew, as I turn to Dawn. See? My sister finds her soulmate, and not only does she get rewarded with love and happiness, she gets free champagne flutes, and dutch ovens, and fifty-dollar checks. And what do I get? What do I get on a day when I still haven't found anyone to love? When I'm waiting by the phone for some jerk to call me, and acting like a crazy woman, e-mailing him at three a.m., clutching at straws that I might ever find anyone? Do I get gifts? No! I get condemnation from my grandmother, and I get to wear a dress that makes me look like a baked potato. — Kim Gruenenfelder

At the age of nine, I simultaneously fell in love with two Dutch sisters because they seemed so beautifully strange, and their clothes were mysterious and alluring - added to which, they could not speak a word of English. More than anything, I wanted to connect with them and embark on a vast journey of exploration. — Michael Leunig

Researchers who studied a thousand Dutch vacationers concluded that by far the greatest amount of happiness extracted from the vacation is derived from the anticipation period ... — Daniel Kahneman

I could have stayed holding on to Masimo and riding round forever, round and round, like that bloke on that doomed phantom boat, The Flying Dutchman. Of course there are differences - he was not on a scooter, and I don't have a beard and I am not Dutch. — Louise Rennison

It is the middle of December now, and we are about to travel to Switzerland - where we plan to ski a little, relax a little, and shoot a Dutch politician a little. — Hugh Laurie

In the Netherlands - where I come from - you actually never see a pig, which is really strange, because, in a population of 16 million people, we have 12 million pigs. And well, of course, the Dutch can't eat all these pigs. They eat about one-third, and the rest is exported to all kinds of countries in Europe and the rest of the world. — Christien Meindertsma

It was the Dutch of this era who invented the idea of the home as a personal, intimate space; one might say they invented coziness. — Russell Shorto

I liked to tinker with things, like Father. Make things with my hands. I liked to be alone, but not to be lonely. You were my only friend. You and Dutch. — Sharon Lynn Fisher

Two Dutch researchers did a study in which they had groups of students answer forty-two fairly demanding questions from the board game Trivial Pursuit. Half were asked to take five minutes beforehand to think about what it would mean to be a professor and write down everything that came to mind. Those students got 55.6 percent of the questions right. The other half of the students were asked to first sit and think about soccer hooligans. They ended up getting 42.6 percent of the Trivial Pursuit questions right. The "professor" group didn't know more than the "soccer hooligan" group. They weren't smarter or more focused or more serious. They were simply in a "smart" frame of mind, and, clearly, associating themselves with the idea of something smart, like a professor, made it a lot easier - in that stressful instant after a trivia question was asked - to blurt out the right answer. — Malcolm Gladwell

I know that I am very popular in Holland, in fact I have visited Amsterdam several times to publicize my books. I have a great publisher in Holland and they have published all of my books in Dutch. — Jackie Collins

I think Iran is a very dangerous country - very dangerous to Israel, to the Middle East, and also to the United States. They export terrorism. And they also have the ability to manufacture rockets and missiles. — Dutch Ruppersberger

I think the Dutch certainly get British comedy. And let's face it; a lot of it is pretty low-hanging fruit for the whole world now. There are probably tribes in the heart of the Papua New Guinean rainforest that know all the words to the Dead Parrot sketch. — Rhianna Pratchett