Quotes from Hendrik Willem van Loon

The history of the world is the record of a man in quest of his daily bread and butter.

Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance.

Life means progress, and progress means suffering.

High in the North in a land called Svithjod there is a mountain. It is a hundred miles long and a hundred miles high and once every thousand years a little bird comes to this mountain to sharpen its beak. When the mountain has thus been worn away a single day of eternity will have passed.

On the other hand, when you grow up you will discover that some of the people in this world never passed beyond the stage of the cave-man.

For tolerance (and you must remember this when you grow older), is of very recent origin and even the people of our own so-called modern world are apt to be tolerant only upon such matters as do not interest them very much.

It is little enough we know and the rest is darkness.

For history is like life. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

The history of man is the record of a hungry creature in search of food. Wherever food was plentiful, thither man has travelled to make his home. - Page 22

He was like one of those elderly gentlemen in Central Park who go around feeding birds and squirrels. Their pockets are filled with everything these small creatures may like to eat. The birds and the squirrels sense this and they perch on the shoulders of their benefactors and climb all over them in quest of what they consider their legitimate belongings.

History is the mighty tower of experience, which time has built amidst the endless fields of bygone ages. - Forward

G)aiety and kindness and tolerance and understanding were the gifts he bestowed upon the world. Wherever he went, he squandered these rare possessions in a most magnificent and bountiful manner, for he knew (what all wise people have realized since the beginning of time) that the only treasures which are truly ours are those we lay up in the hearts of our friends.

Martyrs are the best possible advertisements for an unpopular cause.

As a day well spent gives joyful sleep, so does a life well spent give joyful death. —Leonardo da Vinci

Never worry about what may happen tomorrow, for in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it won't. And don't take things too seriously, for very few things are worth it.

The original mistake, which was responsible for all this misery, was committed when our scientists began to create a new world of steel and iron and chemistry and electricity and forgot that the human mind is slower than the proverbial turtle, is lazier than the well-known sloth, and marches from one hundred to three hundred years behind the small group of courageous leaders.

N)o more weeping, if you please...Do you remember what our ancestors used to say when everything went wrong? Ende desespereert nite . Whatever we do, let us never despair. So here is to good health and here is to our love for each other and here is to hope.

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. There is no elevator, but young feet are strong and it can be done.

As if any of us could bear to live in a world of unadulterated truth!

But in practical politics, it does not matter what is true, but everything depends upon what the people believe to be true.

B)ut what use is even the best of remedies, concocted by the most learned of apothecaries, if the patient throws the mixture out of the window and his physician after it?

For youth can no more live without some kind of hero than it can without its daily supply of fresh air and vitamins.

F)or no word that has been uttered for the purpose of making man the master of his own fate has been spoken in vain.

An ignorant person is, by the very fact of his or her ignorance a very dangerous person.