Belgium

"We are pleased to note that Belgian entrepreneurs have begun to follow the trail blazed by other European investors into our manufacturing sector. Malaysia's infrastructures, the abundance of vital industrial raw materials and liberal investment climate should provide an added inducement to Belgian investors. We hope that Belgian investors would consider the advantages of venturing into, among other things, Malaysia's natural resource based industries. We would like to register our deep appreciation to the Belgian Government for the technical cooperation programme which has made valuable contribution in the fields of agriculture and wood technology. We are confident that the Belgian Government would positively consider the possibility of expanding the scope of the assistance programme to other areas including environmental pollution monitoring and forensic science. I also wish to take this opportunity to thank the Belgian Government for the generous emplacements of our students in Belgian institutions of higher learning."

"My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with a low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery."

"Rory: "Lorelai Gilmore". Nope, doesn't sound model-y enough. You need something that stands out more. How about "Waffle"? We could call you Waffle and say you're from Belgium."

"Another Armenia, Belgium … the weak innocents who always seem to be located on a natural invasion route."

"Ray: I do know a Belgium joke! Okay, what's Belgium famous for? Chocolates and child abuse and they only invented the chocolates to get to the kids."

"Belgium" is the rudest word in the universe, which is "completely banned in all parts of the Galaxy, except in one part, where they could not possibly know what it means."

"They're the Canada of France."

"He said when he left that he wanted to repair the relationship, and that is very crucial. We need their help in Iraq. The more we can entice others to help us, the less of a target we could be."

"The years of slavery are past, The Belgian rejoices once more; Courage restores to him at last, The rights he held of yore. Strong and firm his grasp will be, Keeping the ancient flag unfurled, To fling its message on the watchful world: For king, for right, for liberty."

"'If in Belgium they continue to eat chocolate, enjoy life and parade as great liberals and democrats while not taking account of the fact that some of the Muslims who are there are organising acts of terror, they will not be able to fight against them"

"The European Union and many of its countries, which used to take initiatives in the United Nations for peaceful settlements of conflict, are now one of the most important war assets of the U.S./NATO front. Many countries have also been drawn into complicity in breaking international law through U.S./U.K./NATO wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and so on."

"The wealth of our country and our institutional system lies particularly in the fact that our diversity is strength. Whenever we find a balance between unity and diversity, the strength of Belgium is precisely to give meaning to our diversity."

"But perhaps we are wrong. Perhaps our memory deceives us. Dr. Goebbels and his Propaganda Machine have their own version of what happened twenty-five years ago. To hear them talk, you would suppose that it was Belgium that invaded Germany! There they were, these peaceful Prussians, gathering in their harvests, when this wicked, Belgium – set on by England and the Jews – fell upon them; and would no doubt have taken Berlin, if Corporal Adolf Hitler had not come to the rescue and turned the tables. Indeed, the tale goes further. After four years of war by land and sea, when Germany was about to win an overwhelming victory, the Jews got at them again, this time from the rear. Armed with President Wilson’s Fourteen Points they stabbed, we are told, the German armies in the back, and induced them to ask for an armistice, and even persuaded them, in an unguarded moment, to sign a paper saying that it was they and not the Belgians who had been the ones to begin the War. Such is history as it is taught in topsy-turvydom. And now it is holiday again, and where are we now? Or, as you sometimes ask in the United States – where do we go from here?"

"Americans reflexively believe that 'Had Germany occupied the United States, nearly all of us would have joined an armed resistance to the Nazis. That's what I thought, too, when I was 16. But that reflects a hopelessly naive view, both of what the world looked like to most people after the Nazis had conquered Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway and France, and of what it actually meant to take up arms against an occupying power'."

"We've just heard from the Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many point a finger of blame at the DRC and other poor countries for their poverty. Yet we don’t seem to remember, or want to remember, that starting around 1870, King Leopold of Belgium created a slave colony in the Congo that lasted for around 40 years; and then the government of Belgium ran the colony for another 50 years. In 1961, after independence of the DRC, the CIA then assassinated the DRC’s first popular leader, Patrice Lumumba, and installed a US-backed dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, for roughly the next 30 years. And in recent years, and other multinational companies suck out the DRC’s cobalt without paying a level of royalties and taxes. We simply don’t reflect on the real history of the DRC and other poor countries struggling to escape from poverty. Instead, we point fingers at these countries and say, “What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you govern yourselves properly?”"

"The law of Belgium is the same as that of France, except that the “grande natural isation” can only be conferred by act of the legislature."

"Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired."

"Brutally attacked by Germany which had entered into the most solemn engagements with her, Belgium will defend herself with all of her strength against the invader. In these tragic hours which my country is undergoing, I am addressing myself to Your Excellency, who so often has demonstrated towards Belgium an affectionate interest, in the certainty that you will support with all of your moral authority the efforts which we are now firmly decided to make in order to preserve our independence."

"On July 31, 1950, I accepted to hand over the royal powers to my son. It was my will to renounce the throne for good as soon as it turned out that all Belgians would have united themselves around Prince Baudouin. I now establish that this unanimity has been achieved. The last words I wish to say as king of the Belgians will strongly indicate that the future of the fatherland depends on your national solidarity, I swear to agree to you, God protect Belgium and our Congo."

"I have no other desire than to leave Belgium bigger, stronger and more beautiful."

"It is not the first time that Belgium has had to undergo a dangerous ordeal. But never has the situation been more serious than today! … Freedom, honor, the very existence of the fatherland is at stake."

"Small country, small people."

"If I do not promise Belgium a splendid government like that which founded its independence, nor a great King like him whom we mourn, then at least i believe to be a Belgian King in heart and soul, whose whole life belongs to the country."

"Belgium is a boiler that needs valves."

"There exists but one country in the civilised world where every strike is eagerly and joyously turned into a pretext for the official massacre of the Working Class. That country of single blessedness is Belgium! the model state of continental constitutionalism, the snug, well-hedged, little paradise of the landlord, the capitalist, and the priest. The earth performs not more surely its yearly revolution than the Belgian Government its yearly Working Men’s massacre. The massacre of this year does not differ from last year’s massacre, but by the ghastlier number of its victims, the more hideous ferocity of an otherwise ridiculous army, the noisier jubilation of the clerical and capitalist press, and the intensified frivolity of the pretexts put forward by the Governmental butchers."

"Belgium does only pure philanthropy."

"This is no proof that our Belgian people are not as foolish as some think, and that there are few in Belgium who voluntarily play soldier."

"Cuba and Belgium are both countries of modest size, surrounded by large, powerful and often hostile powers."

"Belgium had no prior history in the slave trade, nor of African slaves. Léopold could fight against slavery without any hint of hypocrisy, even of the ahistorical type advanced by Hochschild. And it was slavery, not rubber operations, that contemporary observers viewed as the biggest threat to the people of the Congo."