Quotes and Images From Motley's History of the Netherlands

Part 1

Produced by David Widger

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

Part 2

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

Part 3

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

Part 4

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

Part 5

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

Part 6

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

Part 7

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

Part 8

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

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