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QUOTES AND IMAGES FROM JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS
By John Lothrop Motley
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Motley's History of the Netherlands
Title Page
The Siege of Antwerp
Prince William of Orange-Nassau (William the Silent)
The Earl of Leichester
Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma
John of Barneveld
Bookcover
The Hague
1566, the last year of peace
A pleasantry called voluntary contributions or benevolences
A good lawyer is a bad Christian
A terrible animal, indeed, is an unbridled woman
A common hatred united them, for a time at least
A penal offence in the republic to talk of peace or of truce
A most fatal success
A country disinherited by nature of its rights
A free commonwealth—was thought an absurdity
A hard bargain when both parties are losers
A burnt cat fears the fire
A despot really keeps no accounts, nor need to do so
A sovereign remedy for the disease of liberty
A pusillanimous peace, always possible at any period
A man incapable of fatigue, of perplexity, or of fear
A truce he honestly considered a pitfall of destruction
A great historian is almost a statesman
Able men should be by design and of purpose suppressed
About equal to that of England at the same period
Absolution for incest was afforded at thirty-six livres
Abstinence from unproductive consumption
Abstinence from inquisition into consciences and private parlour
Absurd affectation of candor
Accepting a new tyrant in place of the one so long ago deposed
Accustomed to the faded gallantries
Achieved the greatness to which they had not been born
Act of Uniformity required Papists to assist
Acts of violence which under pretext of religion
Admired or despised, as if he or she were our contemporary
Adulation for inferiors whom they despise
Advanced orthodox party-Puritans
Advancing age diminished his tendency to other carnal pleasures
Advised his Majesty to bestow an annual bribe upon Lord Burleigh
Affecting to discredit them
Affection of his friends and the wrath of his enemies
Age when toleration was a vice
Agreements were valid only until he should repent
Alas! the benighted victims of superstition hugged their chains
Alas! we must always have something to persecute
Alas! one never knows when one becomes a bore
Alexander's exuberant discretion
All Italy was in his hands
All fellow-worms together
All business has been transacted with open doors
All reading of the scriptures (forbidden)
All the majesty which decoration could impart
All denounced the image-breaking
All claimed the privilege of persecuting
All his disciples and converts are to be punished with death
All Protestants were beheaded, burned, or buried alive
All classes are conservative by necessity
All the ministers and great functionaries received presents
All offices were sold to the highest bidder
Allow her to seek a profit from his misfortune
Allowed the demon of religious hatred to enter into its body
Almost infinite power of the meanest of passions
Already looking forward to the revolt of the slave States
Altercation between Luther and Erasmus, upon predestination
Always less apt to complain of irrevocable events
American Unholy Inquisition
Amuse them with this peace negotiation
An inspiring and delightful recreation (auto-da-fe)
An hereditary papacy, a perpetual pope-emperor
An age when to think was a crime
An unjust God, himself the origin of sin
An order of things in which mediocrity is at a premium
Anarchy which was deemed inseparable from a non-regal form
Anatomical study of what has ceased to exist
And give advice. Of that, although always a spendthrift
And now the knife of another priest-led fanatic
And thus this gentle and heroic spirit took its flight
Angle with their dissimulation as with a hook
Announced his approaching marriage with the Virgin Mary
Annual harvest of iniquity by which his revenue was increased
Anxiety to do nothing wrong, the senators did nothing at all
Are apt to discharge such obligations— (by) ingratitude
Are wont to hang their piety on the bell-rope
Argument in a circle
Argument is exhausted and either action or compromise begins
Aristocracy of God's elect
Arminianism
Arrested on suspicion, tortured till confession
Arrive at their end by fraud, when violence will not avail them
Artillery
As logical as men in their cups are prone to be
As the old woman had told the Emperor Adrian
As if they were free will not make them free
As lieve see the Spanish as the Calvinistic inquisition
As ready as papists, with age, fagot, and excommunication
As with his own people, keeping no back-door open
As neat a deception by telling the truth
At a blow decapitated France
At length the twig was becoming the tree
Atheist, a tyrant, because he resisted dictation from the clergy
Attachment to a half-drowned land and to a despised religion
Attacked by the poetic mania
Attacking the authority of the pope
Attempting to swim in two waters
Auction sales of judicial ermine
Baiting his hook a little to his appetite
Barbara Blomberg, washerwoman of Ratisbon
Batavian legion was the imperial body guard
Beacons in the upward path of mankind
Beating the Netherlanders into Christianity
Beautiful damsel, who certainly did not lack suitors
Because he had been successful (hated)
Becoming more learned, and therefore more ignorant
Been already crimination and recrimination more than enough
Before morning they had sacked thirty churches
Began to scatter golden arguments with a lavish hand
Beggars of the sea, as these privateersmen designated themselves
Behead, torture, burn alive, and bury alive all heretics
Being the true religion, proved by so many testimonies
Believed in the blessed advent of peace
Beneficent and charitable purposes (War)
best defence in this case is little better than an impeachment
Bestowing upon others what was not his property
Better to be governed by magistrates than mobs
Better is the restlessness of a noble ambition
Beware of a truce even more than of a peace
Bigotry which was the prevailing characteristic of the age
Bishop is a consecrated pirate
Blessed freedom from speech-making
Blessing of God upon the Devil's work
Bold reformer had only a new dogma in place of the old ones
Bomb-shells were not often used although known for a century
Breath, time, and paper were profusely wasted and nothing gained
Brethren, parents, and children, having wives in common
Bribed the Deity
Bungling diplomatists and credulous dotards
Burned, strangled, beheaded, or buried alive (100,000)
Burned alive if they objected to transubstantiation
Burning with bitter revenge for all the favours he had received
Burning of Servetus at Geneva
Business of an officer to fight, of a general to conquer
But the habit of dissimulation was inveterate
But after all this isn't a war It is a revolution
But not thoughtlessly indulgent to the boy
Butchery in the name of Christ was suspended
By turns, we all govern and are governed
Calling a peace perpetual can never make it so
Calumny is often a stronger and more lasting power than disdain
Can never be repaired and never sufficiently regretted
Canker of a long peace
Care neither for words nor menaces in any matter
Cargo of imaginary gold dust was exported from the James River
Casting up the matter "as pinchingly as possibly might be"
Casual outbursts of eternal friendship
Certain number of powers, almost exactly equal to each other
Certainly it was worth an eighty years' war
Changed his positions and contradicted himself day by day
Character of brave men to act, not to expect
Charles the Fifth autocrat of half the world
Chief seafaring nations of the world were already protestant
Chieftains are dwarfed in the estimation of followers
Children who had never set foot on the shore
Christian sympathy and a small assistance not being sufficient
Chronicle of events must not be anticipated
Claimed the praise of moderation that their demands were so few
Cold water of conventional and commonplace encouragement
College of "peace-makers," who wrangled more than all
Colonel Ysselstein, "dismissed for a homicide or two"
Compassing a country's emancipation through a series of defeats
Conceding it subsequently, after much contestation
Conceit, and procrastination which marked the royal character
Conciliation when war of extermination was intended
Conclusive victory for the allies seemed as predestined
Conde and Coligny
Condemned first and inquired upon after
Condemning all heretics to death
Conflicting claims of prerogative and conscience
Conformity of Governments to the principles of justice
Confused conferences, where neither party was entirely sincere
Considerable reason, even if there were but little justice
Considerations of state have never yet failed the axe
Considerations of state as a reason
Considered it his special mission in the world to mediate
Consign to the flames all prisoners whatever (Papal letter)
Constant vigilance is the price of liberty
Constitute themselves at once universal legatees
Constitutional governments, move in the daylight
Consumer would pay the tax, supposing it were ever paid at all
Contained within itself the germs of a larger liberty
Contempt for treaties however solemnly ratified
Continuing to believe himself invincible and infallible
Converting beneficent commerce into baleful gambling
Could handle an argument as well as a sword
Could paint a character with the ruddy life-blood coloring
Could not be both judge and party in the suit
Could do a little more than what was possible
Country would bear his loss with fortitude
Courage of despair inflamed the French
Courage and semblance of cheerfulness, with despair in his heart
Court fatigue, to scorn pleasure
Covered now with the satirical dust of centuries
Craft meaning, simply, strength
Created one child for damnation and another for salvation
Crescents in their caps: Rather Turkish than Popish
Crimes and cruelties such as Christians only could imagine
Criminal whose guilt had been established by the hot iron
Criminals buying Paradise for money
Cruelties exercised upon monks and papists
Crusades made great improvement in the condition of the serfs
Culpable audacity and exaggerated prudence
Customary oaths, to be kept with the customary conscientiousness
Daily widening schism between Lutherans and Calvinists
Deadliest of sins, the liberty of conscience
Deadly hatred of Puritans in England and Holland
Deal with his enemy as if sure to become his friend
Death rather than life with a false acknowledgment of guilt
Decline a bribe or interfere with the private sale of places
Decrees for burning, strangling, and burying alive
Deeply criminal in the eyes of all religious parties
Defeated garrison ever deserved more respect from friend or foe
Defect of enjoying the flattery, of his inferiors in station
Delay often fights better than an army against a foreign invader
Demanding peace and bread at any price
Democratic instincts of the ancient German savages
Denies the utility of prayers for the dead
Denounced as an obstacle to peace
Depths theological party spirit could descend
Depths of credulity men in all ages can sink
Despised those who were grateful
Despot by birth and inclination (Charles V.)
Determined to bring the very name of liberty into contempt
Devote himself to his gout and to his fair young wife
Difference between liberties and liberty
Difficult for one friend to advise another in three matters
Diplomacy of Spain and Rome—meant simply dissimulation
Diplomatic adroitness consists mainly in the power to deceive
Disciple of Simon Stevinus
Dismay of our friends and the gratification of our enemies
Disordered, and unknit state needs no shaking, but propping
Disposed to throat-cutting by the ministers of the Gospel
Dispute between Luther and Zwingli concerning the real presence
Disputing the eternal damnation of young children
Dissenters were as bigoted as the orthodox
Dissimulation and delay
Distinguished for his courage, his cruelty, and his corpulence
Divine right of kings
Divine right
Do you want peace or war? I am ready for either
Doctrine of predestination in its sternest and strictest sense
Don John of Austria
Don John was at liberty to be King of England and Scotland
Done nothing so long as aught remained to do
Drank of the water in which, he had washed
Draw a profit out of the necessities of this state
During this, whole war, we have never seen the like
Dying at so very inconvenient a moment
Each in its turn becoming orthodox, and therefore persecuting
Eat their own children than to forego one high mass
Eight thousand human beings were murdered
Elizabeth, though convicted, could always confute
Elizabeth (had not) the faintest idea of religious freedom
Eloquence of the biggest guns
Emperor of Japan addressed him as his brother monarch
Emulation is not capability
Endure every hardship but hunger
Enemy of all compulsion of the human conscience
England hated the Netherlands
English Puritans
Englishmen and Hollanders preparing to cut each other's throats
Enmity between Lutherans and Calvinists
Enormous wealth (of the Church) which engendered the hatred
Enriched generation after generation by wealthy penitence
Enthusiasm could not supply the place of experience
Envying those whose sufferings had already been terminated
Epernon, the true murderer of Henry
Erasmus of Rotterdam
Erasmus encourages the bold friar
Establish not freedom for Calvinism, but freedom for conscience
Estimating his character and judging his judges
Even the virtues of James were his worst enemies
Even to grant it slowly is to deny it utterly
Even for the rape of God's mother, if that were possible
Ever met disaster with so cheerful a smile
Ever-swarming nurseries of mercenary warriors
Every one sees what you seem, few perceive what you are
Everybody should mind his own business
Everything else may happen This alone must happen
Everything was conceded, but nothing was secured
Evil is coming, the sooner it arrives the better
Evil has the advantage of rapidly assuming many shapes
Excited with the appearance of a gem of true philosophy
Excused by their admirers for their shortcomings
Excuses to disarm the criticism he had some reason to fear
Executions of Huss and Jerome of Prague
Exorcising the devil by murdering his supposed victims
Extraordinary capacity for yielding to gentle violence
Fable of divine right is invented to sanction the system
Faction has rarely worn a more mischievous aspect
Famous fowl in every pot
Fanatics of the new religion denounced him as a godless man
Fate, free will, or absolute foreknowledge
Father Cotton, who was only too ready to betray the secrets
Fear of the laugh of the world at its sincerity
Fed on bear's liver, were nearly poisoned to death
Felix Mants, the anabaptist, is drowned at Zurich
Fellow worms had been writhing for half a century in the dust
Ferocity which even Christians could not have surpassed
Few, even prelates were very dutiful to the pope
Fiction of apostolic authority to bind and loose
Fifty thousand persons in the provinces (put to death)
Financial opposition to tyranny is apt to be unanimous
Find our destruction in our immoderate desire for peace
Fishermen and river raftsmen become ocean adventurers
Fitted "To warn, to comfort, and command"
Fitter to obey than to command
Five great rivers hold the Netherland territory in their coils
Flattery is a sweet and intoxicating potion
Fled from the land of oppression to the land of liberty
Fool who useth not wit because he hath it not
For myself I am unworthy of the honor (of martyrdom)
For faithful service, evil recompense
For women to lament, for men to remember
For us, looking back upon the Past, which was then the Future
For his humanity towards the conquered garrisons (censured)
Forbidding the wearing of mourning at all
Forbids all private assemblies for devotion
Force clerical—the power of clerks
Foremost to shake off the fetters of superstition
Forget those who have done them good service
Forgiving spirit on the part of the malefactor
Fortune's buffets and rewards can take with equal thanks
Four weeks' holiday—the first in eleven years
France was mourning Henry and waiting for Richelieu
French seem madmen, and are wise
Friendly advice still more intolerable
Full of precedents and declamatory commonplaces
Furious fanaticism
Furious mob set upon the house of Rem Bischop
Furnished, in addition, with a force of two thousand prostitutes
Future world as laid down by rival priesthoods
Gallant and ill-fated Lamoral Egmont
Gaul derided the Roman soldiers as a band of pigmies
German-Lutheran sixteenth-century idea of religious freedom
German finds himself sober—he believes himself ill
German Highland and the German Netherland
Gigantic vices are proudly pointed to as the noblest
Give him advice if he asked it, and money when he required
Glory could be put neither into pocket nor stomach
God has given absolute power to no mortal man
God, whose cause it was, would be pleased to give good weather
God alone can protect us against those whom we trust
God of wrath who had decreed the extermination of all unbeliever
God of vengeance, of jealousy, and of injustice
God Save the King! It was the last time
Gold was the only passkey to justice
Gomarites accused the Arminians of being more lax than Papists
Govern under the appearance of obeying
Great transactions of a reign are sometimes paltry things
Great science of political equilibrium
Great Privilege, the Magna Charta of Holland
Great error of despising their enemy
Great war of religion and politics was postponed
Great battles often leave the world where they found it
Guarantees of forgiveness for every imaginable sin
Guilty of no other crime than adhesion to the Catholic faith
Habeas corpus
Had industry been honoured instead of being despised
Haereticis non servanda fides
Hair and beard unshorn, according to ancient Batavian custom
Halcyon days of ban, book and candle
Hanged for having eaten meat-soup upon Friday
Hanging of Mary Dyer at Boston
Hangman is not the most appropriate teacher of religion
Happy to glass themselves in so brilliant a mirror
Hard at work, pouring sand through their sieves
Hardly a distinguished family in Spain not placed in mourning
Hardly a sound Protestant policy anywhere but in Holland
Hardly an inch of French soil that had not two possessors
Having conjugated his paradigm conscientiously
He had omitted to execute heretics
He did his best to be friends with all the world
He was a sincere bigot
He that stands let him see that he does not fall
He was not always careful in the construction of his sentences
He would have no persecution of the opposite creed
He came as a conqueror not as a mediator
He who spreads the snare always tumbles into the ditch himself
He who would have all may easily lose all
He knew men, especially he knew their weaknesses
He had never enjoyed social converse, except at long intervals
He would have no Calvinist inquisition set up in its place
He who confessed well was absolved well
He did his work, but he had not his reward
He sat a great while at a time. He had a genius for sitting
He was not imperial of aspect on canvas or coin
He often spoke of popular rights with contempt
He spent more time at table than the Bearnese in sleep
Heidelberg Catechism were declared to be infallible
Henry the Huguenot as the champion of the Council of Trent
Her teeth black, her bosom white and liberally exposed (Eliz.)
Heresy was a plant of early growth in the Netherlands
Heretics to the English Church were persecuted
Hibernian mode of expressing himself
High officers were doing the work of private, soldiers
Highborn demagogues in that as in every age affect adulation
Highest were not necessarily the least slimy
His inordinate arrogance
His own past triumphs seemed now his greatest enemies
His imagination may have assisted his memory in the task
His insolence intolerable
His learning was a reproach to the ignorant
His invectives were, however, much stronger than his arguments
His personal graces, for the moment, took the rank of virtues
His dogged, continuous capacity for work
Historical scepticism may shut its eyes to evidence
History is a continuous whole of which we see only fragments
History is but made up of a few scattered fragments
History never forgets and never forgives
History has not too many really important and emblematic men
History shows how feeble are barriers of paper
Holland was afraid to give a part, although offering the whole
Holland, England, and America, are all links of one chain
Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands
Holy institution called the Inquisition
Honor good patriots, and to support them in venial errors
Hope delayed was but a cold and meagre consolation
Hope deferred, suddenly changing to despair
How many more injured by becoming bad copies of a bad ideal
Hugo Grotius
Human nature in its meanness and shame
Human ingenuity to inflict human misery
Human fat esteemed the sovereignst remedy (for wounds)
Humanizing effect of science upon the barbarism of war
Humble ignorance as the safest creed
Humility which was but the cloak to his pride
Hundred thousand men had laid down their lives by her decree
I did never see any man behave himself as he did
I know how to console myself
I am a king that will be ever known not to fear any but God
I hope and I fear
I would carry the wood to burn my own son withal
I regard my country's profit, not my own
I will never live, to see the end of my poverty
Idea of freedom in commerce has dawned upon nations
Idiotic principle of sumptuary legislation
Idle, listless, dice-playing, begging, filching vagabonds
If he had little, he could live upon little
If to do be as grand as to imagine what it were good to do
If he has deserved it, let them strike off his head
Ignoble facts which strew the highways of political life
Ignorance is the real enslaver of mankind
Imagined, and did the work of truth
Imagining that they held the world's destiny in their hands
Impatience is often on the part of the non-combatants
Implication there was much, of assertion very little
Imposed upon the multitudes, with whom words were things
Impossible it is to practise arithmetic with disturbed brains
Impossible it was to invent terms of adulation too gross
In revolutions the men who win are those who are in earnest
In character and general talents he was beneath mediocrity
In times of civil war, to be neutral is to be nothing
In Holland, the clergy had neither influence nor seats
In this he was much behind his age or before it
Incur the risk of being charged with forwardness than neglect
Indecision did the work of indolence
Indignant that heretics had been suffered to hang
Individuals walking in advance of their age
Indoor home life imprisons them in the domestic circle
Indulging them frequently with oracular advice
Inevitable fate of talking castles and listening ladies
Infamy of diplomacy, when diplomacy is unaccompanied by honesty
Infinite capacity for pecuniary absorption
Informer, in case of conviction, should be entitled to one half
Inhabited by the savage tribes called Samoyedes
Innocent generation, to atone for the sins of their forefathers
Inquisition of the Netherlands is much more pitiless
Inquisition was not a fit subject for a compromise
Inquisitors enough; but there were no light vessels in The Armada
Insane cruelty, both in the cause of the Wrong and the Right
Insensible to contumely, and incapable of accepting a rebuff
Insinuate that his orders had been hitherto misunderstood
Insinuating suspicions when unable to furnish evidence
Intellectual dandyisms of Bulwer
Intelligence, science, and industry were accounted degrading
Intense bigotry of conviction
Intentions of a government which did not know its own intentions
International friendship, the self-interest of each
Intolerable tendency to puns
Invaluable gift which no human being can acquire, authority
Invented such Christian formulas as these (a curse)
Inventing long speeches for historical characters
Invincible Armada had not only been vanquished but annihilated
Irresistible force in collision with an insuperable resistance
It was the true religion, and there was none other
It is not desirable to disturb much of that learned dust
It had not yet occurred to him that he was married
It is n't strategists that are wanted so much as believers
It is certain that the English hate us (Sully)
Its humility, seemed sufficiently ironical
James of England, who admired, envied, and hated Henry
Jealousy, that potent principle
Jesuit Mariana—justifying the killing of excommunicated kings
John Castel, who had stabbed Henry IV.
John Wier, a physician of Grave
John Robinson
John Quincy Adams
Judas Maccabaeus
July 1st, two Augustine monks were burned at Brussels
Justified themselves in a solemn consumption of time
Kindly shadow of oblivion
King who thought it furious madness to resist the enemy
King had issued a general repudiation of his debts
King set a price upon his head as a rebel
King of Zion to be pinched to death with red-hot tongs
King was often to be something much less or much worse
King's definite and final intentions, varied from day to day
Labored under the disadvantage of never having existed
Labour was esteemed dishonourable
Language which is ever living because it is dead
Languor of fatigue, rather than any sincere desire for peace
Leading motive with all was supposed to be religion
Learn to tremble as little at priestcraft as at swordcraft
Leave not a single man alive in the city, and to burn every house
Let us fool these poor creatures to their heart's content
Licences accorded by the crown to carry slaves to America
Life of nations and which we call the Past
Like a man holding a wolf by the ears
Little army of Maurice was becoming the model for Europe
Little grievances would sometimes inflame more than vast
Local self-government which is the life-blood of liberty
Logic of the largest battalions
Logic is rarely the quality on which kings pride themselves
Logical and historical argument of unmerciful length
Long succession of so many illustrious obscure
Longer they delay it, the less easy will they find it
Look through the cloud of dissimulation
Look for a sharp war, or a miserable peace
Looking down upon her struggle with benevolent indifference
Lord was better pleased with adverbs than nouns
Loud, nasal, dictatorial tone, not at all agreeable
Louis XIII.
Loving only the persons who flattered him
Ludicrous gravity
Luther's axiom, that thoughts are toll-free
Lutheran princes of Germany, detested the doctrines of Geneva
Luxury had blunted the fine instincts of patriotism
Made peace—and had been at war ever since
Made no breach in royal and Roman infallibility
Made to swing to and fro over a slow fire
Magistracy at that moment seemed to mean the sword
Magnificent hopefulness
Maintaining the attitude of an injured but forgiving Christian
Make sheep of yourselves, and the wolf will eat you
Make the very name of man a term of reproach
Man is never so convinced of his own wisdom
Man who cannot dissemble is unfit to reign
Man had only natural wrongs (No natural rights)
Man had no rights at all He was property
Mankind were naturally inclined to calumny
Manner in which an insult shall be dealt with
Many greedy priests, of lower rank, had turned shop-keepers
Maritime heretics
Matter that men may rather pray for than hope for
Matters little by what name a government is called
Meantime the second civil war in France had broken out
Mediocrity is at a premium
Meet around a green table except as fencers in the field
Men were loud in reproof, who had been silent
Men fought as if war was the normal condition of humanity
Men who meant what they said and said what they meant
Mendacity may always obtain over innocence and credulity
Military virtue in the support of an infamous cause
Misanthropical, sceptical philosopher
Misery had come not from their being enemies
Mistake to stumble a second time over the same stone
Mistakes might occur from occasional deviations into sincerity
Mockery of negotiation in which nothing could be negotiated
Modern statesmanship, even while it practises, condemns
Monasteries, burned their invaluable libraries
Mondragon was now ninety-two years old
Moral nature, undergoes less change than might be hoped
More accustomed to do well than to speak well
More easily, as he had no intention of keeping the promise
More catholic than the pope
More fiercely opposed to each other than to Papists
More apprehension of fraud than of force
Most detestable verses that even he had ever composed
Most entirely truthful child he had ever seen
Motley was twice sacrificed to personal feelings
Much as the blind or the deaf towards colour or music
Myself seeing of it methinketh that I dream
Names history has often found it convenient to mark its epochs
National character, not the work of a few individuals
Nations tied to the pinafores of children in the nursery
Natural to judge only by the result
Natural tendency to suspicion of a timid man
Nearsighted liberalism
Necessary to make a virtue of necessity
Necessity of extirpating heresy, root and branch
Necessity of deferring to powerful sovereigns
Necessity of kingship
Negotiated as if they were all immortal
Neighbour's blazing roof was likely soon to fire their own
Neither kings nor governments are apt to value logic
Neither wished the convocation, while both affected an eagerness
Neither ambitious nor greedy
Never peace well made, he observed, without a mighty war
Never did statesmen know better how not to do
Never lack of fishers in troubled waters
New Years Day in England, 11th January by the New Style
Night brings counsel
Nine syllables that which could be more forcibly expressed in on
No one can testify but a householder
No man can be neutral in civil contentions
No law but the law of the longest purse
No two books, as he said, ever injured each other
No retrenchments in his pleasures of women, dogs, and buildings
No great man can reach the highest position in our government
No man is safe (from news reporters)
No man could reveal secrets which he did not know
No authority over an army which they did not pay
No man pretended to think of the State
No synod had a right to claim Netherlanders as slaves
No qualities whatever but birth and audacity to recommend him
No generation is long-lived enough to reap the harvest
No man ever understood the art of bribery more thoroughly
No calumny was too senseless to be invented
None but God to compel me to say more than I choose to say
Nor is the spirit of the age to be pleaded in defence
Not a friend of giving details larger than my ascertained facts
Not distinguished for their docility
Not to let the grass grow under their feet
Not a single acquaintance in the place, and we glory in the fact
Not safe for politicians to call each other hard names
Not his custom nor that of his councillors to go to bed
Not of the genus Reptilia, and could neither creep nor crouch
Not strong enough to sustain many more such victories
Not to fall asleep in the shade of a peace negotiation
Not many more than two hundred Catholics were executed
Not upon words but upon actions
Not for a new doctrine, but for liberty of conscience
Not of the stuff of which martyrs are made (Erasmus)
Not so successful as he was picturesque
Nothing could equal Alexander's fidelity, but his perfidy
Nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly, but sermons
Nothing was so powerful as religious difference
Notre Dame at Antwerp
Nowhere was the persecution of heretics more relentless
Nowhere were so few unproductive consumers
O God! what does man come to!
Obscure were thought capable of dying natural deaths
Obstinate, of both sexes, to be burned
Octogenarian was past work and past mischief
Of high rank but of lamentably low capacity
Often much tyranny in democracy
Often necessary to be blind and deaf
Oldenbarneveld; afterwards so illustrious
On the first day four thousand men and women were slaughtered
One-half to Philip and one-half to the Pope and Venice (slaves)
One-third of Philip's effective navy was thus destroyed
One golden grain of wit into a sheet of infinite platitude
One could neither cry nor laugh within the Spanish dominions
One of the most contemptible and mischievous of kings (James I)
Only healthy existence of the French was in a state of war
Only true religion
Only citadel against a tyrant and a conqueror was distrust
Only kept alive by milk, which he drank from a woman's breast
Only foundation fit for history,— original contemporary document
Opening an abyss between government and people
Opposed the subjection of the magistracy by the priesthood
Oration, fertile in rhetoric and barren in facts
Orator was, however, delighted with his own performance
Others that do nothing, do all, and have all the thanks
Others go to battle, says the historian, these go to war
Our pot had not gone to the fire as often
Our mortal life is but a string of guesses at the future
Outdoing himself in dogmatism and inconsistency
Over excited, when his prejudices were roughly handled
Panegyrists of royal houses in the sixteenth century
Pardon for crimes already committed, or about to be committed
Pardon for murder, if not by poison, was cheaper
Partisans wanted not accommodation but victory
Party hatred was not yet glutted with the blood it had drunk
Passion is a bad schoolmistress for the memory
Past was once the Present, and once the Future
Pathetic dying words of Anne Boleyn
Patriotism seemed an unimaginable idea
Pauper client who dreamed of justice at the hands of law
Paving the way towards atheism (by toleration)
Paying their passage through, purgatory
Peace founded on the only secure basis, equality of strength
Peace was desirable, it might be more dangerous than war
Peace seemed only a process for arriving at war
Peace and quietness is brought into a most dangerous estate
Peace-at-any-price party
Peace, in reality, was war in its worst shape
Peace was unattainable, war was impossible, truce was inevitable
Peace would be destruction
Perfection of insolence
Perpetually dropping small innuendos like pebbles
Persons who discussed religious matters were to be put to death
Petty passion for contemptible details
Philip II. gave the world work enough
Philip of Macedon, who considered no city impregnable
Philip IV.
Philip, who did not often say a great deal in a few words
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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