Words of Wisdom

The next installment in my effort to bring a little Cruyff into your everyday lives. Cruyff’s specific quote is in bold.

We have numerous sayings in Dutch. One of them is” hij hoorde de klok luiden, maar weet niet waar de klepel hangt”. This loosely translates into: “He heard the bell tolling, but doesn’t know where the pendulum hangs”. Meaning, he heard some things about this subject, but he doesn’t really understand the essence. Again, speaking in another language (can’t remember which, could be German or English) he actually said: “this player heard the clock tick, but doesn’t know what time it is…“. This Cruyffian statement got a lot of laughs in Holland, and most people now use this JC-version of the saying, hoping for others to actually correct them. So they in turn can go: hey, this is the way JC says it, so it must be right!! Later, JC confessed that he did know the right way to say it in Dutch, but that while he was saying the words, he realized he didn’t know what pendulum (klepel) was in German/English. Then he added: my version of the saying is actually more logical and better.

^5 Jan