33 Quotes by Hendrik Willem van Loon

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.

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.

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

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.

Martyrs are the best possible advertisements for an unpopular cause.