Everything from this period was bad for the reputation of Belgium! So they showed nothing.

There was a rule in the Foreign Ministry archives. They were not permitted to show researchers material that was bad for the reputation of Belgium. But everything from this period was bad for the reputation of Belgium! So they showed nothing. 

Jules Marchal, cited in A. Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (1998, 2006 edition), 297-8

The effect on anyone who read those stories could be only that of overwhelming horror

And so the statements [on the atrocities in the Congo] continue, story after story, by the hundreds. Here at last was something the rest of the world had seldom heard from the Congo: the voices of the Congolese themselves. On few other occasions in the entire European Scramble for Africa did anyone gather such a searing collection of firsthand African testimony. The effect on anyone who read those stories could be only that of overwhelming horror.

However, no one read them.

Despite the report's conclusions, the statements by African witnesses were never directly quoted. The commission's report was expressed in generalities. The stories were not published separately, not was anyone allowed to see them. They ended up in the closed section of a state archive in Brussels. Not till the 1980s were people at last allowed to see them.

A. Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (1998, 2006 edition), 255

An Italian who considers his charm and good looks will enable him to get away with anything

Bismarck, no fool, scribbled a comment in the margin beside this passage: "Swindle." Beside a passage about a confederation of free states, he put "Fantasies." When Leopold wrote that the precise frontiers of the new state or states would be defined later, Bismarck said to an aide: "His Majesty displays the pretentions and naïve selfishness of an Italian who considers his charm and good looks will enable him to get away with anything." 

A. Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (1998, 2006 edition), 83

Righteous denunciations poured down on a distant, weak, and safely nonwhite target

Significantly, British and French antislavery fervor in the 1860s was directed not at Spain and Portugal, which allowed slavery in their colonies, or at Brazil, with its millions of slaves. Instead, righteous denunciations poured down on a distant, weak, and safely nonwhite target: the so-called Arab slave-traders raiding Africa from the east. In the slave markets of Zanzibar, traders sold their human booty to Arab plantation owners on the island itself, and to other buyers in Persia, Madagascar, and the various sultanates and principalities of the Arabian peninsula. For Europeans, here was an ideal target for disapproval: one "uncivilised" race enslaving another.

A. Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (1998, 2006 edition), 28

I had witnessed the last parade in my lifetime in which German soldiers would goose step

Goose-stepping, grey-uniformed infantry, the unhappy heirs to the Prussian martial tradition, seemed keen to demonstrate their superiority over any other European infantry. I retreated to a café after half an hour to write in my diary: 'When the Wall comes down, as it must, the thoughts of all this Prussian military tradition married to West German economic power is extremely disturbing' (7 October 1989). Happily, I was wrong: after reunification the quietude of the West German military quickly infected the former East German military; I had witnessed the last parade in my lifetime in which German soldiers would goose step.

R. Bassett, Last days in old Europe (2019), 143

It is hard to recall today how robust and energetic London was in the 1980s in standing up for the rights of Central European intellectuals

It is hard to recall today how robust and energetic London was in the 1980s in standing up for the rights of Central European intellectuals who were largely ignored by the other European states. The West Germans did not want to rock the boat of their relations with the East Germans. The French were reluctant to speak out in case it damaged their 'special relationship' with Moscow. The Italians and Spanish preferred to focus on commercial interests. In Europe, only London resolutely and consistently defended the human rights of the subject populations of the Soviet Empire.   

R. Bassett, Last days in old Europe (2019), 112-13

A sense of the absurd married to an inflexible observation of the rules of etiquette

She [Countess Bianca Maria Colomba Korvin] came to personify for me more and more all the qualities of the Habsburg world: perseverance, courage, detachment, and, perhaps above all, a sense of the absurd married to an inflexible observation of the rules of etiquette. However much we laughed together and became friends, the formal Sie was never once surrendered to the informal Du.

R. Bassett, Last days in old Europe (2019), 14-15

This once great metropolitan port had become, in practice, an enormous museum - a museum with very few visitors.

Trieste has been quiet since the early 1960s. Its status as a minor port of Italy, much disputed by Marshal Tito's Communist Yugoslavia in he immediate aftermath of the Second World War, had finally been stabilized by international treaty four years earlier. The Cold War had sealed it off from its hinterland and this once great metropolitan port had become, in practice, an enormous museum - a museum with very few visitors.

R. Bassett, Last days in old Europe (2019), 2

Justice, in British India, was far from blind: it was highly attentive to the skin colour of the defendant

Justice, in British India, was far from blind: it was highly attentive to the skin colour of the defendant. Crimes committed by whites against Indians attracted minimal punishment; and Englishman who shot dead his manservant got six months' jail time and a modest fine (then about 100 rupees), while an Indian convicted of attempted rape against an Englishwoman was sentenced to twenty years rigorous imprisonment.

S. Tharoor, Inglorious Empire (2016), 90

It is said that when Nadir Shah and his forces returned home, they had stolen so much from India that all taxes were eliminated in Persia for the next three years

But less than a century and a half later, this Mughal empire was in a state of collapse after the spectacular sacking of Delhi by the Persian Nadir Shah in 1739 and the loot of all its treasures. The Mughal capital was pillaged and burned over eight long weeks; gold, silver, jewels and finery worth over 500 million rupees, were seized, along with the entire contents of the imperial treasury and the emperor's fabled Peacock throne; elephants and horses were commandeered; and 50,000 corpses littered the streets. It is said that when Nadir Shah and his forces returned home, they had stolen so much from India that all taxes were eliminated in Persia for the next three years.

S. Tharoor, Inglorious Empire, (2016) 3 

I find this starkness of this passage in Tharoor's book on 'What the British did to India' really odd. This is largely because it rather seems to undercut his arguments - the same as everyone else seems to to be clear implication here  - but also because of the bizarre opener: 150 years is ages. It's more than the gap between Henry VIII and the Glorious Revolution; the Domesday book and Magna Carta; or Napoleon and Versailles.

Theodorous says I shouldn't write poetry until I've studied the last thousand years

Theodorous says I shouldn't write poetry
until I've studied the last thousand years

of the canon, learnt it     off by heart
and can quote it at random, and imitate it

before attempting my own stuff, and he says
it's imperative I start with hendecasyllables

a la Pliny Jr, but I retaliated, saying
I found the lot of it B-O-R-I-N-G

B. Evaristo, The Emperor's babe (2001), 83-84

You dream of either owning slaves or freeing them

When you're a slave you dream
of either owning slaves or freeing them.

B. Evaristo, The Emperor's babe (2001), 25