Desiderius Erasmus Quotes

It hardly needs explaining at length, I think, how much authority or beauty is added to style by the timely use of proverbs. In the first place who does not see what dignity they confer on style by their antiquity alone?... And so to interweave adages deftly and appropriately is to make the language as a whole glitter with sparkles from Antiquity, please us with the colours of the art of rhetoric, gleam with jewel-like words of wisdom, and charm us with titbits of wit and humour.

Sacred scripture is of course the basic authority for everything; yet I sometimes run across ancient sayings or pagan writings - even the poets - so purely and reverently and admirably expressed that I can't help believing the author's hearts were moved by some divine power. And perhaps the spirit of Christ is more widespread than we understand, and the company of the saints includes many not on our calendar.

Besides, it happens (how, I cannot tell) that an idea launched like a javelin in proverbial form strikes with sharper point on the hearer's mind and leaves implanted barbs for meditation.

Nothing is so foolish, they say, as for a man to stand for office and woo the crowd to win its vote, buy its support with presents, court the applause of all those fools and feel self-satisfied when they cry their approval, and then in his hour of triumph to be carried round like an effigy for the public to stare at, and end up cast in bronze to stand in the market place.

What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don't know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?

There is no joy in possession without sharing.

No Man is wise at all Times, or is without his blind Side.

It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn't have it, to fear and suspect the worst.

It's the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide.

It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay to antiquity its due reverence.

God has administered to us of the present age, a bitter draught and a harsh physician, on account of our abounding infirmities.

No one respects a talent that is concealed.

Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.

I am a citizen of the world, known to all and to all a stranger.

Great eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, or honor, cannot exist without sin.

What passes out of one's mouth passes into a hundred ears. It is a great misfortune not to have sense enough to speak well.

Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known.

Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn't -it's human.

What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.

Fools are without number.

The desire to write grows with writing.

Almost all Christians being wretchedly enslaved to blindness and ignorance, which the priests are so far from preventing or removing, that they blacken the darkness, and promote the delusion: wisely foreseeing that the people (like cows, which never give down their milk so well as when they are gently stroked), would part with less if they knew more.

For them it's out-of-date and outmoded to perform miracles; teaching the people is too like hard work, interpreting the holy scriptures is for schoolmen and praying is a waste of time; to shed tears is weak and womanish, to be needy is degrading; to suffer defeat is a disgrace and hardly fitting for one who scarcely permits the greatest of kings to kiss the toes of his sacred feet; and finally, death is an unattractive prospect, and dying on a cross would be an ignominious end.

A good prince will tax as lightly as possible those commodities which are used by the poorest members of society: grain, bread, beer, wine, clothing, and all other staples without which human life could not exist.

Man is to man either a god or a wolf.

It seems to me to be the best proof of an evangelical disposition, that persons are not angry when reproached, and have a Christian charity for those that ill deserve it.

The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are.

Nature, more of a stepmother than a mother in several ways, has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfied with their own lot and envious of another s.

Young bodies are like tender plants, which grow and become hardened to whatever shape you've trained them.

He who doesn't sin, is the greatest sinner of all.

Out of all those centuries the Greeks can count seven sages at the most, and if anyone looks at them more closely I swear he'll not find so much as a half-wise man or even a third of a wise man among them.

Your library is your paradise.

Retain the wind by compressing the belly.

Modern church music is so constructed that the congregation cannot hear one distinct word.

War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.

...it is a sneaking piece of cowardice for authors to put feigned names to their works, as if, like bastards of their brain, they were afraid to own them.

You'll see certain Pythagorean whose belief in communism of property goes to such lengths that they pick up anything lying about unguarded, and make off with it without a qualm of conscience as if it had come to them by law.

Of two evils choose the least.

I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.

Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians.

The entire world is my temple, and a very fine one too, if I'm not mistaken, and I'll never lack priests to serve it as long as there are men.

From hence, no question, has sprung an observation ... confirmed now into a settled opinion, that some long experienced souls in the world, before their dislodging, arrive to the height of prophetic spirits.

Frugality is a handsome income.

Our determination to imitiate Christ should be such that we have no time for other matters.

Bidden or unbidden, God is present.

You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay; it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn.

This type of man who is devoted to the study of wisdom is always most unlucky in everything, and particularly when it comes to procreating children; I imagine this is because Nature wants to ensure that the evils of wisdom shall not spread further throughout mankind.

Before you sleep, read something that is exquisite, and worth remembering.