The origin of the quote may have more to do with cultural differences between the Dutch and Americans.
The “truths that might hurt” essay is a great example. Yeah, the truth hurts for many people. People don’t like being called out on their folly, particularly if it’s something they don’t personally control. That Durant make it “arrogant” to point it out.
Also, Alan Kaye is overrated. Object orientation is one of those painful truths.
Ignaz Semmelweis was right. He also died in an asylum, having utterly failed to convince doctors to wash their hands between patients.
And speaking as a Dutch man, given the kind of humor we have I'm pretty certain Dijkstra appreciated a good roast like that too.
That would seem to be your sentiment, not his, based on the link you shared. Rather than being censorious he shared a nice story on the matter.
It can be inferred from Kay's own words. He probably was just poking fun in a tongue-in-cheek manner often seen amongst larger-than-life figures.
John Backus called Edsger Dijkstra arrogant since the latter was highly critical of the former's research in functional programming (not the substance but the hyping). Kay was probably riffing off of that.
The problem is that a lot of noobs/kids/oldies-who-should-know-better often dismiss(!) Dijkstra's work because of this silly quote. Thus in this case, a "nice story" is actually an obstacle to people reading Dijkstra.