Een cd die The Best Long Versions, deel 2 heet, kan nooit bedoeld zijn voor een intelligent publiek.

‘ Under Charlemagne, the Frisians often rebelled, making common cause with the Saxons. In 785, A.D., they were, however, completely subjugated, and never rose again until the epoch of their entire separation from the Frank empire. Charlemagne left them their name of free Frisians, and the property in their own land. The feudal system never took root in their soil. “The Frisians,” says their statute book; “shall be free, as long as the wind blows out of the clouds and the world stands.” They agreed, however, to obey the chiefs whom the Frank monarch should appoint to govern them, according to their own laws. Those laws were collected, and are still extant. The vernacular version of their Asega book contains their ancient customs, together with the Frank additions. The general statutes of Charlemagne were, of course, in vigor also; but that great legislator knew too well the importance attached by all mankind to local customs, to allow his imperial capitulara to interfere, unnecessarily, with the Frisian laws. ‘
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‘ The old Frisian laws consisted almost entirely of a discriminating tariff upon crimes. Nearly all the misdeeds which man is prone to commit, were punished by a money-bote only. Murder, larceny, arson, rape–all offences against the person were commuted for a definite price. There were a few exceptions, such as parricide, which was followed by loss of inheritance; sacrilege and the murder of a master by a slave, which were punished with death. It is a natural inference that, as the royal treasury was enriched by these imposts, the sovereign would hardly attempt to check the annual harvest of iniquity by which his revenue was increased. Still, although the moral sense is shocked by a system which makes the ruler’s interest identical with the wickedness of his people, and holds out a comparative immunity in evil-doing for the rich, it was better that crime should be punished by money rather than not be punished at all. A severe tax, which the noble reluctantly paid and which the penniless culprit commuted by personal slavery, was sufficiently unjust as well as absurd, yet it served to mitigate the horrors with which tumult, rapine, and murder enveloped those early days. Gradually, as the light of reason broke upon the dark ages, the most noxious features of the system were removed, while the general sentiment of reverence for law remained. ‘

John Lothrop Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic [1855].

‘ Another Anglo-Saxon, Winfred, or Bonifacius, had been equally active among his Frisian cousins. His crozier had gone hand in hand with the battle-axe. Bonifacius followed close upon the track of
his orthodox coadjutor Charles. By the middle of the eighth century, some hundred thousand Frisians had been slaughtered, and as many more converted. The hammer which smote the Saracens at Tours was at last successful in beating the Netherlanders into Christianity. The labors of Bonifacius through Upper and Lower Germany were immense; but he, too, received great material rewards. He was created Archbishop of Mayence, and, upon the death of Willibrod, Bishop of Utrecht. Faithful to his
mission, however, he met, heroically, a martyr’s death at the hands of the refractory pagans at Dokkum. Thus was Christianity established in the Netherlands.

‘ Under Charlemagne, the Frisians often rebelled, making common cause with the Saxons. In 785, A.D., they were, however, completely subjugated, and never rose again until the epoch of their entire separation from the Frank empire. Charlemagne left them their name of free Frisians, and the property in their own land. The feudal system never took root in their soil. “The Frisians,” says their statute book; “shall be free, as long as the wind blows out of the clouds and the world stands.” They agreed, however, to obey the chiefs whom the Frank monarch should appoint to govern them, according to their own laws. Those laws were collected, and are still extant. The vernacular version of their Asega book contains their ancient customs, together with the Frank additions. The general statutes of Charlemagne were, of course, in vigor also; but that great legislator knew too well the importance attached by all mankind to local customs, to allow his imperial capitulara to interfere, unnecessarily, with the Frisian laws.

John Lothrop Motley The Rise of the Dutch Republic [1855].

‘ And every serious thinker, especially if he hopes to be a professional writer, should keep a notebook or a journal. I pointed out, in the first edition of this book, that good ideas are often elusive and must be captured in flight — in other words, that it is excellent practice always to have a pencil and pad handy, so as to jot down a good thought the moment after it lights up your mind. The complacent assumption that once a bright idea or happy phrase occurs to you it is a permanent acquisition, to be called upon only when needed, too often proves false. Even Nietzsche, one of the great seminal minds of the nineteenth century, found that: “A thought comes when it wishes, not when I wish.”

‘ When we write out our ideas, we are at the same time testing, developing, arranging, crystallizing, and completing them. We imagine ourselves not only making these ideas clear to others, but making them seem as important to others as they do to ourselves. So we try to make what was vague in our minds precise and definite; what was implicit, explicit; what was discon-nected, unified; what was fragmentary, whole. We frame a generalization, then try to make it as plausible as we can; we try to think of concrete illus-trations of it. And as we do this, we also expose it to ourselves — and some-times, alas, find that it is empty, untenable, or sheer nonsense. ‘

Henry Hazlitt, The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt [1993]