Russell Shorto · 384 pages
Rating: (6.6K votes)
“It was possible, as far as they knew, that the western shore, which in fifty years’ time would be christened New Jersey, was in fact the backdoor of China, that India, with its steamy profusion of gods and curries, lay just beyond those bluffs.”
― Russell Shorto, quote from The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
“It was the Dutch of this era who invented the idea of the home as a personal, intimate space; one might say they invented coziness.”
― Russell Shorto, quote from The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
“This book tells the story of that moment in time. It is a story of high adventure set during the age of exploration—when Francis Drake, Henry Hudson, and Captain John Smith were expanding the boundaries of the world, and Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Galileo, Descartes, Mercator, Vermeer, Harvey, and Bacon were revolutionizing human thought and expression.”
― Russell Shorto, quote from The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
“Instead, power went to those who made things happen: businessmen and local magistrates. Over time, human nature being what it is, these men would create a kind of nobility, sometimes even buying titles from cash-poor foreigners, but this in itself underscores the point. Upward mobility was part of the Dutch character: if you worked hard and were smart, you rose in stature. Today that is a byword of a healthy society; in the seventeenth century it was weird.”
― Russell Shorto, quote from The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
Russell Shorto
Born place: Johnstown, Pennsylvania, The United States
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“Og intet Rop, intet Menneskes Ord hørtes noget Sted, ingenting, men bare det tunge Sus omkring mit Hode.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Pan
“And you told me the biggest lie of all. You told me you loved me,” It was my turn to wince like he’d slapped me. “I don’t remember saying that” “You would if it had been true. You would feel something”
― Jennifer Echols, quote from Forget You
“Let me tell you how it’s going to be, Justice. You don’t tell me who I can and can’t have inside my house. I work for the NSO but my personal life is my own. You lost the right to give me your opinion,” she stressed that last word, “about what I do or don’t do the second you decided you didn’t want to see me anymore. You don’t want me so don’t you dare tell me I can’t spend time with other men.”
― Laurann Dohner, quote from Justice
“When I kill a man, I do it with my sword, but people like you don't use swords. You gentlemen kill with your power, with your money, and sometimes just with your words: you tell people you're doing them a favor. True, no blood flows, the man is still alive, but you've killed him all the same. I don't know whose sin is greater―yours or mine. (A sarcastic smile.)”
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, quote from Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories
“It is far. But there is no journey upon this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There is nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross; save a mountain and a a desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he holds his life in his hand counting it as nothing, ready to keep it or to lose it as Providence may order.”
― H. Rider Haggard, quote from King Solomon's Mines
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