Boudewijn > Boudewijn's Quotes

“A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books.”
― Plato

“But see that you get on. That's your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on.”
― Stephen King, The Shining

“She isn't a big deal, of course, except to the people who matter in her life, but since these are the only ones she cares about, that's fine.”
― Stephen King, Rose Madder

“History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.”
― Robertson Davies

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“You know you're a history fan when you still get upset thinking about the library of Alexandria”
― somewhere on the internet

“If human beings were to sincerely exercise justice and humanity in their relations with one another, the horrors of war in all likelihood could be avoided, and even if a war unfortunately broke out, the victor would not become arrogant and the suffering of the losers would be alleviated immediately. A truly great cultural nation in the first requisite.”
― General Kawabe

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”
― John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy

“Though reporters made much of the challenge of keeping up with Patton, he was never far away from the press. (...) Presiding at a ceremony to open the Roosevelt Railroad Bridge near Mainz, he was invited to cut the ribbon with a large pair of scissors. He gave them back demanding 'a goddamned bayonet' adding he wasn't 'a goddamned tailor' - as if anyone in their wildest imagination supposed he might be.”
― Barry Turner, Karl Doenitz and the Last Days of the Third Reich

“As a measure of the disorganisation that now ruled, a British intelligence officer in Bierden, a village which had been vacated by German troops 24 hours earlier, picked up the telephone to find himself speaking with a German staff officer. The caller wanted to know how close the British were. Replying in German, the intelligence officer assured him that the village was secure. The delighted officer promised an early visit, bringing with him his commanding general. The subsequent ambush bagged not only two senior officers but also a fine Mercedes.”
― Barry Turner, Karl Doenitz and the Last Days of the Third Reich

“In the room where the signing [of the surrender] was to take place the sole decorations were three flags upon the end wall: the Red Flag, the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. The French colours were nowhere to be seen. De Tassigny declared that France could not be represented at the ceremony without her flag alongside those of her Allies. But where could a French flag to be found?

The Russians decided to make one, with a piece of red stuff taken from a former Hitlerite banner, a white sheet and a piece of blue serge cut out of an engineer's overalls. Alas! Our tricolor was less familiar to the young Russian girls than the red flag to many French girls, for when a jeep brought along the flag that had been run op in this way we found a magnificient Dutch flag: the blue, white and red had been sewn not one beside the other but one above the other!”
― Barry Turner, Karl Doenitz and the Last Days of the Third Reich

“If the German armies had disintegrated like Napoleon’s Grande Armée in the winter of 1941, and the Third Reich had sued for peace, most of the soldiers and civilians who were to die in the Second World War would have lived.”
― Nicholas Stargardt, The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945

“Ask him about the cemeteries, Dean!”
― Lyndon Baines Johnson

“These were the kids destined to live the hardworking lives of their parents and take up their fathers' trades, the future farmers, homemakers and baby makers, if they could scoot through these few years of wild pounding hormones without getting hurt or hurting someone else. If they could keep out of jail for this short stretch, most would go on to be the spine of American society - fixing the cars, working the factories, growing the food and fighting the wars.”
― Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run

“At Peter’s court, the tournament of power would be still more vicious. The prizes were glittering, the ascent vertiginous, the descent sudden and the end often lethal.”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs: 1613-1918

“In the midst of Our great grief,’ announced Alexander III, ‘the voice of God bids Us to stand staunchly for government relying on God’s design with faith in the truth of autocratic power.”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs: 1613-1918

“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations