Hendrik Willem Van Loon

“ From Russia to England is a far cry. The two countries are antipodes in everything except geographical situation. England is an earthly paradise to all those who can appreciate the greatest refinement of material things; Russia is avoided by the foreign traveler unless he is of an adventurous and courageous nature. Yet this delightful country of smiling fields surrounded on all sides by a profitable ocean, this merry old country of happy ballads and recollections of a charming past, will be affected by the war to a greater extent than any of the other participants of the great struggle. ”

“ The old cities of Egypt have disappeared from the face of the earth. Nineveh and Babylon are deserted mounds of dust and brick. The ancient temple of Jerusalem lies buried beneath the blackened ruins of its own glory.
One city alone has survived the ages.
It is called Damascus.
Within its four great gates and its strong walls a busy people has followed its daily occupations for five thousand consecutive years and the "Street called Straight" which is the city's main artery of commerce, has seen the coming and going of one hundred and fifty generations. ”

“ The confused commotion of the streets and the market-place, of the factories and the workshop, became the well-ordered expression of human energy and purpose. Best of all, the wide view of the glorious past, which surrounded us on all sides, gave us new courage to face the problems of the future when we had gone back to our daily tasks.
History is the mighty Tower of Experience, which Time has built amidst the endless fields of bygone ages. It is no easy task to reach the top of this ancient structure and get the benefit of the full view. ”

“ In the great melting pot of the Bonapartistic empire all Hollanders at last become equal in the real sense of the word. They all have the same chance at promotion, at riches, and the pursuit of happiness. Devotion to the master, and devotion to him alone, will bring recognition from the new divinity who issues orders signed with a single gigantic N. Old Republic of the United Netherlands, enlightened Republic of the Free Batavian Proconsulate, Kingdom of Holland, it's all the same to the man who regards this little land as so much mud, deposited by his own, his French, rivers. ”

“ It was then that Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, a devoted patriot of great personal distinction, wrote his famous letter in which he tried to suggest a compromise.
“Why,” so he asked, “should we Pagans and our Christian neighbors not live in peace and harmony? We look up to the same stars, we are fellow-passengers on the same planet and dwell beneath the same sky. What matters it along which road each individual endeavors to find the ultimate truth? The riddle of existence is too great that there should be only one path leading to an answer.” ”

“ Forced to rule Germans and Italians and Spaniards and a hundred strange races, Charles grows up a Fleming, a faithful son of the Catholic Church, but quite averse to religious intolerance. He is rather lazy, both as a boy and as a man. But fate condemns him to rule the world when the world is in a turmoil of religious fervour. Forever he is speeding from Madrid to Innsbruck and from Bruges to Vienna. He loves peace and quiet and he is always at war. At the age of fifty-five, we see him turn his back upon the human race in utter disgust at so much hate and so much stupidity. ”

“ OVER on the other side of the ocean, on the Continent of Europe, where a man's life counts for less than that of an insect, it seemed for just one short moment as though the veil of the future was torn away, and a vision of the future showed suddenly itself to me, like the view of a distant valley from a mountain top when there is a rift in the surrounding clouds. ”

“ But when he tries to invent an excuse for his own lack of mental faculties, he becomes a holy terror. For then he erects within his soul a granite bulwark of self-righteousness and from the high pinnacle of this formidable fortress, he defies all his enemies (to wit, those who do not share his own prejudices) to show cause why they should be allowed to live.
People suffering from this particular affliction are both uncharitable and mean. Because they live constantly in a state of fear, they easily turn to cruelty and love to torture those against whom they have a grievance. ”

“ Outwardly, the Roman state during the first century of our era was a magnificent political structure, so large that Alexander’s empire became one of its minor provinces. Underneath this glory there lived millions upon millions of poor and tired human beings, toiling like ants who have built a nest underneath a heavy stone. They worked for the benefit of some one else. They shared their food with the animals of the fields. They lived in stables. They died without hope.
It was the seven hundred and fifty-third year since the founding of Rome. ”

“ And then, once more for many years, dull, pious citizens, taking no interest in anything but their own respectability, looking at the world from behind closed curtains, so terribly hit by adversity that they no longer dare to be active. Until this generation gradually takes the road to the welcome cemetery, the curtains are pulled up, the windows are opened, and a fresh spirit of energy and enterprise is allowed to blow through the old edifice, and the old fear of living is replaced by the desire to take an active part in the work of the greater world. ”

“ Whatever the outcome of the war, France knows that among the masses of her people, among the millions of industrious workers of her rich country, she has the very best that this world possesses. After the war there is only one course that France can follow: the old aristocracy which made the France of glorious outward fame and horrible domestic misery can never return to power. The middle class has had a fair trial, and it has failed. For better or for worse, the old home of the emancipation of the human mind will have to turn to a new order of things. ”

“ Regents, coal-heavers, patriots, fish peddlers, officers and soldiers, soon they are all to be of the same human clay. The vote of one is as good as that of the other. Wherefore, in the name of Equality, give them all a chance and see what will come of it. If a constitution does not suit at the first attempt, use it to feed a patriotic bonfire. After all, what else is it but some woodpulp and printer's ink? If the parliament of to-day does not please the voters of to-morrow, dissolve it, close it with the help of gendarmes. ”

“ In the terms of a great Russian writer (and Russians ought to know what they are talking about in this field) a revolution is "a swift overthrow, in a few years, of institutions which have taken centuries to root in the soil, and seem so fixed and immovable that even the most ardent reformers hardly dare to attack them in their writings. It is the fall, the crumbling away in a brief period, of all that up to that time has composed the essence of social, religious, political and economic life in a nation." ”

“ But when John asked, “Free to do what?” the answers greatly differed.
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“Free to go forth in quest of Beauty,” the Renaissance replied.
“Free to go in quest of Truth,” the Reformation admonished him.
“Free to search the records of the past when the world was truly the realm of men. Free to realize those ideals which once filled the hearts of poets and painters and sculptors and architects. Free to turn the universe into thine eternal laboratory, that thou mayest know all her secrets,” was the promise of the Renaissance. ”