What matters most to me is that Leiden University has been a Praesidium Libertatis for 450 years: a bastion of freedom. The courage and freedom of and within the university is embodied, unsurprisingly, in the bravery of Professor Cleveringa. The following quote from the beginning of his famous protest speech on 26 November 1940 stands out in particular: 'All I desire is to remove them from our sight, leaving them beneath us, and to direct your eyes upwards to the resplendent figure of the person to whom we owe our presence here.' Impressive, now and always, forever an inspiration.
