Quotes and Images From Motley's History of the Netherlands
by
John Lothrop Motley
Part 2 out of 2
Picturesqueness of crime
Placid unconsciousness on his part of
defeat
Plain enough that he is telling his own
story
Planted the inquisition in the
Netherlands
Played so long with other men's
characters and good name
Plea of infallibility and of authority
soon becomes ridiculous
Plundering the country which they came
to protect
Poisoning, for example, was absolved
for eleven ducats
Pope excommunicated him as a heretic
Pope and emperor maintain both
positions with equal logic
Portion of these revenues savoured much
of black-mail
Possible to do, only because we see
that it has been done
Pot-valiant hero
Power the poison of which it is so
difficult to resist
Power to read and write helped the
clergy to much wealth
Power grudged rather than given to the
deputies
Practised successfully the talent of
silence
Pray here for satiety, (said Cecil)
than ever think of variety
Preferred an open enemy to a
treacherous protector
Premature zeal was prejudicial to the
cause
Presents of considerable sums of money
to the negotiators made
Presumption in entitling themselves
Christian
Preventing wrong, or violence, even
towards an enemy
Priests shall control the state or the
state govern the priests
Princes show what they have in them at
twenty-five or never
Prisoners were immediately hanged
Privileged to beg, because ashamed to
work
Proceeds of his permission to eat meat
on Fridays
Proclaiming the virginity of the
Virgin's mother
Procrastination was always his first
refuge
Progress should be by a spiral movement
Promises which he knew to be binding
only upon the weak
Proposition made by the wolves to the
sheep, in the fable
Protect the common tranquillity by
blood, purse, and life
Provided not one Huguenot be left alive
in France
Public which must have a slain
reputation to devour
Purchased absolution for crime and
smoothed a pathway to heaven
Puritanism in Holland was a very
different thing from England
Put all those to the torture out of
whom anything can be got
Putting the cart before the oxen
Queen is entirely in the hands of Spain
and the priests
Questioning nothing, doubting nothing,
fearing nothing
Quite mistaken: in supposing himself
the Emperor's child
Radical, one who would uproot, is a man
whose trade is dangerous
Rarely able to command, having never
learned to obey
Rashness alternating with hesitation
Rather a wilderness to reign over than
a single heretic
Readiness to strike and bleed at any
moment in her cause
Readiness at any moment to defend
dearly won liberties
Rearing gorgeous temples where paupers
are to kneel
Reasonable to pay our debts rather than
to repudiate them
Rebuked him for his obedience
Rebuked the bigotry which had already
grown
Recall of a foreign minister for
alleged misconduct in office
Reformer who becomes in his turn a
bigot is doubly odious
Reformers were capable of giving a
lesson even to inquisitors
Religion was made the strumpet of
Political Ambition
Religion was rapidly ceasing to be the
line of demarcation
Religion was not to be changed like a
shirt
Religious toleration, which is a phrase
of insult
Religious persecution of Protestants by
Protestants
Repentance, as usual, had come many
hours too late
Repentant males to be executed with the
sword
Repentant females to be buried alive
Repose under one despot guaranteed to
them by two others
Repose in the other world, "Repos
ailleurs"
Republic, which lasted two centuries
Republics are said to be ungrateful
Repudiation of national debts was never
heard of before
Requires less mention than Philip III
himself
Resolve to maintain the civil authority
over the military
Resolved thenceforth to adopt a system
of ignorance
Respect for differences in religious
opinions
Result was both to abandon the
provinces and to offend Philip
Revocable benefices or feuds
Rich enough to be worth robbing
Righteous to kill their own children
Road to Paris lay through the gates of
Rome
Rose superior to his doom and took
captivity captive
Round game of deception, in which
nobody was deceived
Royal plans should be enforced
adequately or abandoned entirely
Ruinous honors
Rules adopted in regard to pretenders
to crowns
Sacked and drowned ten infant princes
Sacrificed by the Queen for faithfully
obeying her orders
Safest citadel against an invader and a
tyrant is distrust
Sages of every generation, read the
future like a printed scroll
Saint Bartholomew's day
Sale of absolutions was the source of
large fortunes to the priests
Same conjury over ignorant baron and
cowardly hind
Scaffold was the sole refuge from the
rack
Scepticism, which delights in reversing
the judgment of centuries
Schism in the Church had become a
public fact
Schism which existed in the general
Reformed Church
Science of reigning was the science of
lying
Scoffing at the ceremonies and
sacraments of the Church
Secret drowning was substituted for
public burning
Secure the prizes of war without the
troubles and dangers
Security is dangerous
Seeking protection for and against the
people
Seem as if born to make the idea of
royalty ridiculous
Seemed bent on self-destruction
Seems but a change of masks, of
costume, of phraseology
Sees the past in the pitiless light of
the present
Self-assertion--the healthful but not
engaging attribute
Self-educated man, as he had been a
self-taught boy
Selling the privilege of eating eggs
upon fast-days
Senectus edam maorbus est
Sent them word by carrier pigeons
Sentiment of Christian self-complacency
Sentimentality that seems highly
apocryphal
Served at their banquets by hosts of
lackeys on their knees
Seven Spaniards were killed, and seven
thousand rebels
Sewers which have ever run beneath
decorous Christendom
Shall Slavery die, or the great
Republic?
Sharpened the punishment for reading
the scriptures in private
She relieth on a hope that will deceive
her
She declined to be his procuress
She knew too well how women were
treated in that country
Shift the mantle of religion from one
shoulder to the other
Shutting the stable-door when the steed
is stolen
Sick soldiers captured on the water
should be hanged
Sick and wounded wretches were burned
over slow fires
Simple truth was highest skill
Sixteen of their best ships had been
sacrificed
Slain four hundred and ten men with his
own hand
Slavery was both voluntary and
compulsory
Slender stock of platitudes
Small matter which human folly had
dilated into a great one
Smooth words, in the plentiful lack of
any substantial
So much responsibility and so little
power
So often degenerated into tyranny
(Calvinism)
So much in advance of his time as to
favor religious equality
So unconscious of her strength
Soldier of the cross was free upon his
return
Soldiers enough to animate the good and
terrify the bad
Solitary and morose, the necessary
consequence of reckless study
Some rude lessons from that vigorous
little commonwealth
Sometimes successful, even although
founded upon sincerity
Sonnets of Petrarch
Sovereignty was heaven-born, anointed
of God
Spain was governed by an established
terrorism
Spaniards seem wise, and are madmen
Sparing and war have no affinity
together
Spendthrift of time, he was an
economist of blood
Spirit of a man who wishes to be proud
of his country
St. Peter's dome rising a little nearer
to the clouds
St. Bartholomew was to sleep for seven
years longer
Stake or gallows (for) heretics to
transubstantiation
Stand between hope and fear
State can best defend religion by
letting it alone
States were justified in their almost
unlimited distrust
Steeped to the lips in sloth which
imagined itself to be pride
Storm by which all these treasures were
destroyed (in 7 days)
Strangled his nineteen brothers on his
accession
Strength does a falsehood acquire in
determined and skilful hand
String of homely proverbs worthy of
Sancho Panza
Stroke of a broken table knife
sharpened on a carriage wheel
Studied according to his inclinations
rather than by rule
Style above all other qualities seems
to embalm for posterity
Subtle and dangerous enemy who wore the
mask of a friend
Succeeded so well, and had been
requited so ill
Successful in this step, he is ready
for greater ones
Such a crime as this had never been
conceived (bankruptcy)
Such an excuse was as bad as the
accusation
Suicide is confession
Superfluous sarcasm
Suppress the exercise of the Roman
religion
Sure bind, sure find
Sword in hand is the best pen to write
the conditions of peace
Take all their imaginations and
extravagances for truths
Talked impatiently of the value of my
time
Tanchelyn
Taxation upon sin
Taxed themselves as highly as fifty per
cent
Taxes upon income and upon consumption
Tempest of passion and prejudice
Ten thousand two hundred and twenty
individuals were burned
Tension now gave place to exhaustion
That vile and mischievous animal called
the people
That crowned criminal, Philip the
Second
That unholy trinity--Force; Dogma, and
Ignorance
That cynical commerce in human lives
That he tries to lay the fault on us is
pure malice
The tragedy of Don Carlos
The worst were encouraged with their
good success
The history of the Netherlands is
history of liberty
The great ocean was but a Spanish lake
The divine speciality of a few
transitory mortals
The sapling was to become the tree
The nation which deliberately carves
itself in pieces
The expenses of James's household
The Catholic League and the Protestant
Union
The blaze of a hundred and fifty
burning vessels
The magnitude of this wonderful
sovereign's littleness
The defence of the civil authority
against the priesthood
The assassin, tortured and torn by four
horses
The Gaul was singularly unchaste
The vivifying becomes afterwards the
dissolving principle
The bad Duke of Burgundy, Philip
surnamed "the Good,"
The greatest crime, however, was to be
rich
The more conclusive arbitration of
gunpowder
The disunited provinces
The noblest and richest temple of the
Netherlands was a wreck
The voice of slanderers
The calf is fat and must be killed
The illness was a convenient one
The egg had been laid by Erasmus,
hatched by Luther
The perpetual reproductions of history
The very word toleration was to sound
like an insult
The most thriving branch of national
industry (Smuggler)
The pigmy, as the late queen had been
fond of nicknaming him
The slightest theft was punished with
the gallows
The art of ruling the world by doing
nothing
The wisest statesmen are prone to
blunder in affairs of war
The Alcoran was less cruel than the
Inquisition
The People had not been invented
The small children diminished rapidly
in numbers
The busy devil of petty economy
The record of our race is essentially
unwritten
The truth in shortest about matters of
importance
The time for reasoning had passed
The effect of energetic, uncompromising
calumny
The evils resulting from a confederate
system of government
The vehicle is often prized more than
the freight
The faithful servant is always a
perpetual ass
The dead men of the place are my
intimate friends
The loss of hair, which brings on
premature decay
The personal gifts which are nature's
passport everywhere
The nation is as much bound to be
honest as is the individual
The fellow mixes blood with his colors!
Their existence depended on war
Their own roofs were not quite yet in a
blaze
Theological hatred was in full blaze
throughout the country
Theology and politics were one
There is no man who does not desire to
enjoy his own
There was but one king in Europe, Henry
the Bearnese
There are few inventions in morals
There was no use in holding language of
authority to him
There was apathy where there should
have been enthusiasm
There is no man fitter for that purpose
than myself
Therefore now denounced the man whom he
had injured
These human victims, chained and
burning at the stake
They had come to disbelieve in the
mystery of kingcraft
They chose to compel no man's
conscience
They could not invent or imagine
toleration
They knew very little of us, and that
little wrong
They have killed him, 'e ammazato,'
cried Concini
They were always to deceive every one,
upon every occasion
They liked not such divine right nor
such gentle-mindedness
They had at last burned one more
preacher alive
Things he could tell which are too
odious and dreadful
Thirty thousand masses should be said
for his soul
Thirty-three per cent. interest was
paid (per month)
Thirty Years' War tread on the heels of
the forty years
This Somebody may have been one whom we
should call Nobody
This, then, is the reward of forty
years' service to the State
This obstinate little republic
This wonderful sovereign's littleness
oppresses the imagination
Those who fish in troubled waters only
to fill their own nets
Those who "sought to swim between two
waters"
Those who argue against a foregone
conclusion
Thought that all was too little for him
Thousands of burned heretics had not
made a single convert
Three hundred fighting women
Three hundred and upwards are hanged
annually in London
Three or four hundred petty sovereigns
(of Germany)
Throw the cat against their legs
Thus Hand-weapen, hand-throwing, became
Antwerp
Time and myself are two
Tis pity he is not an Englishman
To think it capable of error, is the
most devilish heresy of all
To stifle for ever the right of free
enquiry
To attack England it was necessary to
take the road of Ireland
To hear the last solemn commonplaces
To prefer poverty to the wealth
attendant upon trade
To shirk labour, infinite numbers
become priests and friars
To doubt the infallibility of Calvin
was as heinous a crime
To negotiate with Government in England
was to bribe
To milk, the cow as long as she would
give milk
To work, ever to work, was the primary
law of his nature
To negotiate was to bribe right and
left, and at every step
To look down upon their inferior and
lost fellow creatures
Toil and sacrifices of those who have
preceded us
Tolerate another religion that his own
may be tolerated
Tolerating religious liberty had never
entered his mind
Toleration--that intolerable term of
insult
Toleration thought the deadliest heresy
of all
Torquemada's administration (of the
inquisition)
Torturing, hanging, embowelling of men,
women, and children
Tranquil insolence
Tranquillity rather of paralysis than
of health
Tranquillity of despotism to the
turbulence of freedom
Triple marriages between the respective
nurseries
Trust her sword, not her enemy's word
Twas pity, he said, that both should be
heretics
Twenty assaults upon fame and had forty
books killed under him
Two witnesses sent him to the stake,
one witness to the rack
Tyrannical spirit of Calvinism
Tyranny, ever young and ever old,
constantly reproducing herself
Uncouple the dogs and let them run
Under the name of religion (so many
crimes)
Understood the art of managing men,
particularly his superiors
Undue anxiety for impartiality
Unduly dejected in adversity
Unequivocal policy of slave
emancipation
Unimaginable outrage as the most
legitimate industry
Universal suffrage was not dreamed of
at that day
Unlearned their faith in bell, book,
and candle
Unproductive consumption being
accounted most sagacious
Unproductive consumption was alarmingly
increasing
Unremitted intellectual labor in an
honorable cause
Unwise impatience for peace
Upon their knees, served the queen with
wine
Upon one day twenty-eight master cooks
were dismissed
Upper and lower millstones of royal
wrath and loyal subserviency
Use of the spade
Usual phraseology of enthusiasts
Usual expedient by which bad
legislation on one side countered
Utter disproportions between the king's
means and aims
Utter want of adaptation of his means
to his ends
Uttering of my choler doth little ease
my grief or help my case
Uunmeaning phrases of barren benignity
Vain belief that they were men at
eighteen or twenty
Valour on the one side and discretion
on the other
Villagers, or villeins
Visible atmosphere of power the poison
of which
Volatile word was thought preferable to
the permanent letter
Vows of an eternal friendship of
several weeks' duration
Waiting the pleasure of a capricious
and despotic woman
Walk up and down the earth and destroy
his fellow-creatures
War was the normal and natural
condition of mankind
War was the normal condition of
Christians
War to compel the weakest to follow the
religion of the strongest
Was it astonishing that murder was more
common than fidelity?
Wasting time fruitlessly is sharpening
the knife for himself
We were sold by their negligence who
are now angry with us
We believe our mothers to have been
honest women
We are beginning to be vexed
We must all die once
We have been talking a little bit of
truth to each other
We have the reputation of being a good
housewife
We mustn't tickle ourselves to make
ourselves laugh
Wealth was an unpardonable sin
Wealthy Papists could obtain immunity
by an enormous fine
Weapons
Weary of place without power
Weep oftener for her children than is
the usual lot of mothers
Weight of a thousand years of error
What exchequer can accept chronic
warfare and escape bankruptcy
What could save the House of Austria,
the cause of Papacy
What was to be done in this world and
believed as to the next
When persons of merit suffer without
cause
When all was gone, they began to eat
each other
When the abbot has dice in his pocket,
the convent will play
Whether dead infants were hopelessly
damned
Whether murders or stratagems, as if
they were acts of virtue
Whether repentance could effect
salvation
While one's friends urge moderation
Who the "people" exactly were
Who loved their possessions better than
their creed
Whole revenue was pledged to pay the
interest, on his debts
Whose mutual hatred was now artfully
inflamed by partisans
William of Nassau, Prince of Orange
William Brewster
Wise and honest a man, although he be
somewhat longsome
Wiser simply to satisfy himself
Wish to sell us the bear-skin before
they have killed the bear
Wish to appear learned in matters of
which they are ignorant
With something of feline and feminine
duplicity
Wonder equally at human capacity to
inflict and to endure misery
Wonders whether it has found its harbor
or only lost its anchor
Word peace in Spanish mouths simply
meant the Holy Inquisition
Word-mongers who, could clothe one
shivering thought
Words are always interpreted to the
disadvantage of the weak
Work of the aforesaid Puritans and a
few Jesuits
World has rolled on to fresher fields
of carnage and ruin
Worn crescents in their caps at Leyden
Worn nor caused to be worn the collar
of the serf
Worship God according to the dictates
of his conscience
Would not help to burn fifty or sixty
thousand Netherlanders
Wrath of the Jesuits at this exercise
of legal authority
Wrath of bigots on both sides
Wrath of that injured personage as he
read such libellous truths
Wringing a dry cloth for drops of
evidence
Write so illegibly or express himself
so awkwardly
Writing letters full of injured
innocence
Yes, there are wicked men about
Yesterday is the preceptor of To-morrow
You must show your teeth to the
Spaniard
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