Amsterdam Quotes - page 4
![[P]op prophets tell us that Muslims in Europe are reproducing so fast and European societies are so weak and listless that, before you know it, the continent will become "Eurabia," with all the topless gals on the Rivera wearing veils. Well, maybe not. The notion that continental Europeans, who are world-champion haters, will let the impoverished Muslim immigrants they confine to ghettos take over their societies and extent the caliphate from the Amalfi Coast to Amsterdam has it exactly wrong. (Ralph Peters)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/49/ralph-peters-caliphate-coast-757449.webp)
Greek Phanariot merchants and traders dominated the commerce of the Ottoman empire, utilizing their kinship networks and social and religious institutions to maximize not only their business and assets, but also their cultural capital. Diaspora Greeks became especially prominent from the eighteenth century in the development of printing and the press, and experienced a major intellectual revival in cities as far afield as Vienna, Venice, Odessa, Paris, and Amsterdam.
Anthony D. Smith
..the highly abstract cubism of Mondrian - a Dutchman - (it is well-known that cubism has made its entrance into the [Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam...) though a product of cubism, Mondrian in no way imitates this style. He seems above all to have undergone the influence of Picasso, but his personality has been remained intact. His trees and his female portrait display a sensitive cerebral quality. This kind of cubism clearly follows a different path from that of Braque and Picasso, artists whose 'recherche de matière' [research of the material as matter, what Mondrian deliberately ignores]] is presently arousing such interest.
Piet Mondrian
I was lucky because the same week that I went to prison the Americans crossed the Rhine and cut off the northern part of Holland, so there was no longer any possibility of being shipped out to a concentration camp. The rail lines were cut. So I was in prison in Amsterdam during the very last days of the war. We were sent to the men's prison and the girls were sent to a women's prison in a different place.
Abraham Pais
When reading the story of Yeshu one is reminded of another Jew who, like Yeshu, became one of the most influential people in all of history but was also condemned and rejected by the Jews – Baruch Spinoza of Amsterdam (1632-1677). He, too, had been fully part of the Jewish community, then started to oppose Judaism, broke away at a young age and became one of the greatest secular Jewish philosophers ever. He, too, is admired by millions.
Baruch Spinoza
[Alberto Knox] Spinoza belonged to the Jewish community of Amsterdam, but he was excommunicated for heresy. Few philosophers in more recent times have been so blasphemed and so persecuted for their ideas as this man. It happened because he criticized the established religion. He believed that Christianity and Judaism were only kept alive by rigid dogma and outer ritual. He was the first to apply what we call a historico-critical interpretation of the Bible.
Baruch Spinoza
Explanatory version: Ah Rembrandt, try to paint Cornelis Anslo's voice / What one sees of his appearance is so little of him / What you can't see of him you can learn through hearing. / Those wanting a complete impression of him will have to hear him (preach). (transl. Aernout Hagen, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam)
Rembrandt
During a later period of his life, Rembrandt became bankrupt, mainly through his own extravagance... he could not help but collect things. At this time, his marvelous collection of paintings, jewels, swords, armor and precious costumes were publicly sold for a pittance. He had to leave his big, beautiful house in the fashionable part of Amsterdam and go to a very poor quarter. His original, fine house is now open to view. He dressed his subjects in oriental costumes, weapons and armor to give a rich, romantic and mysterious radiance to his paintings. At the same time he was a very down-to-earth Dutchman with a passion for reality. His art is the synthesis of a tremendous attraction to reality, with a need to draw things as they really were, and a desire for the exotic, the dramatic, the radiant, the unusual and the mysterious. p. 402.
Rembrandt
