alternatehistory.com

Lands of Red and Gold #50: A Necklace of Pearls

“If the United Netherlands can prosper so after seventy years of war, what will she accomplish after seventy years of peace?”
- Attributed to Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange, after the signing of the Peace of Hamburg (1638) saw Spain recognise the independence of the Dutch Republic

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“Wherefore it be said, we will never make war with the Hollanders, for we are of the same faith. Nay, for we still worship God, they have turned to gold.”
- William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Duke Regent of England, 1643

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“Holland is a country where the demon gold is seated on a throne of cheese, and crowned with kunduri.”
- Claudius Salmasius, a Huguenot exile teaching at the university of Leyden, 1647

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“There is hardly a single Hollander of any consideration in Java, who does not have a concubine – a way of life that is deplorable, and which can give very little inducement to the natives to become converts to our religion.”
- Anonymous Dutch minister of the Reformed Church, shortly after arriving in the East Indies

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“Peer review can be said to have existed ever since people began to identify and communicate what they thought was new knowledge, because peer review (whether before or after publication) is an essential and integral part of consensus building and is integral and necessary to the growth of scientific knowledge.

In the stricter sense of formalised review of a professional’s findings by a group of their peers, albeit in a post-publication context, peer review seems to have begun with the physicians of Tjibarr, Gutjanal and Yigutji...”
- From The History of Medicine

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“A traveller has a destination, a student has only a journey.”

“Fear not change; without change, nothing can take place.”

“All men are joined together; teach them, spurn them or punish them, but you cannot remove them.”

“The longest journey begins when a man looks inside himself.”
- From Oora Gulalu [The Endless Road]

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“No gains of mere conquest or triumphs of will could have brought as much lasting wealth to the Danes as the introduction of what was, if seen from above the ground, merely an oddly-shaped dandelion.”
- Jesper Pontoppidan, Norse and Syd

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“Sicily is a large island, but not large enough to hold that man’s ego.”
- Ferdinando III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, after first meeting Lorenzo Piazzi, the Advent revolutionary turned King of Sicily

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“Bohemia is the axle on which the wheel of Europe turns.”
- Maximilian III, Grand Duke of Bavaria (among other titles), speaking on the eve of the Nine Years’ War

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“For every state, from the smallest to the greatest, the principle of enlargement is the fundamental law of life.”
- Christian Albert I, Elector of Saxony, My Times and Testament

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“Practice not usury. Interest is false money. No man should lend for reward unless he also accepts the risk.”
- From Good Man, Good Life

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“By machines mankind is able to do that which their own bodily powers would never effect to the same extent. Machines are the product of the mind of man, and their existence distinguishes the civilised man from the savage.”
- Rene Michaux, pioneering industrialist

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“Society unravels in this modern age. As we learn to do more with machines, we forget more of what it means to be men.”

“A mill [factory] is a means for concentrating the labour of many into the wealth of one.”

“A man who works for wages is scarce more than a slave. A farmer finds food, hearth and home on his own land. An artisan works for himself. Yet a labourer in mill or workshop serves at the bidding of another. If he is fortunate, he will be given enough coin to survive, but not to thrive. If he is unfortunate, he will be cast aside, bereft of food or shelter.”

“Alone, a wage-labourer weeps at a world which is cast out of balance. Never can a man in cloth cap stand equal to a man who wears a ruby. Only when the labourers stand together can harmony be restored.”

- Myumitsi Makan, better known in English as Solidarity Jenkins

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“How can they claim to be one nation under God when they can’t give you a straight answer as to whether they have only one god?”
- “Sweet” Como Wiradjuri, retiring ambassador to Alleghania, on his return home

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“A great cause needs great men.”
- Tjewarra (“strong heart”), Atjuntja activist

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“Nia, Paluna, na Umoja.” (Strong will, decisiveness, and unity [1].)
- Motto of the African Liberation Army

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“Old Man Keribee always said that Gideon and Samson are the only two men worth remembering in the Jewish [ie Old] Testament. If I can’t be like Gideon for his life, I can be like Samson for his death.”
- From the last letter left by Ngengi wa Lemaron, for his parents

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[1] This motto is in Swahili, the allohistorical version of which includes the borrowed word “paluna” (decisiveness).

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Thoughts?