Top 100 Desiderius Erasmus Quotes
#1. The majority of the common people loathe war and pray for peace; only a handful of individuals, whose evil joys depend on general misery, desire war.
Desiderius Erasmus
#3. Scarcely is there any peace so unjust that it is better than even the fairest war. -Vix ulla tam iniqua pax, quin bello vel aequissimo sit potior
Desiderius Erasmus
#4. The Jewish usurers are fast-rooted even in the smallest villages, and if they lend five gulden they require a security of six times as much. They charge interest, upon interest, and upon this again interest, so that the poor man loses everything that he owns.
Desiderius Erasmus
#5. What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.
Desiderius Erasmus
#6. They take unbelievable pleasure in the hideous blast of the hunting horn and baying of the hounds. Dogs dung smells sweet as cinnamon to them.
Desiderius Erasmus
#8. Nothing doth worse become a man (I will not say a Christian man) than war.
Desiderius Erasmus
#9. Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.
Desiderius Erasmus
#13. If you look at history you'll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.
Desiderius Erasmus
#14. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#15. War is sweet to those who haven't tasted it. Dulce bellum inexpertis.
Desiderius Erasmus
#16. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#19. It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay to antiquity its due reverence.
Desiderius Erasmus
#20. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#21. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#24. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#25. The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth
Desiderius Erasmus
#27. Moreover God hath ordained man in this world, as it were, the very image of himself, to the intent, that he, as it were a god on earth, should provide for the wealth of all creatures.
Desiderius Erasmus
#28. How do you like our England, you will say? Believe me when I assure you that I have never liked anything as much before.
Desiderius Erasmus
#30. Young bodies are like tender plants, which grow and become hardened to whatever shape you've trained them.
Desiderius Erasmus
#34. 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 ...
Desiderius Erasmus
#35. Jupiter, not wanting man's life to be wholly gloomy and grim, has bestowed far more passion than reason
you could reckon the ration as twenty-four to one. Moreover, he confined reason to a cramped corner of the head and left all the rest of the body to the passions.
Desiderius Erasmus
#36. It is a greater advantage to be honestly educated than honorably born.
Desiderius Erasmus
#38. Surely there is nothing so ungracious, nor nothing so cruel, but men will hold therewith, if it be once approved by custom.
Desiderius Erasmus
#39. It's the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide.
Desiderius Erasmus
#40. The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes.
Desiderius Erasmus
#41. There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.
Desiderius Erasmus
#43. They may attack me with an army of six hundred syllogisms; and if I do not recant, they will proclaim me a heretic.
Desiderius Erasmus
#44. Heaven grant that the burden you carry may have as easy an exit as it had an entrance. Prayer To A Pregnant Woman
Desiderius Erasmus
#45. So our student will flit like a busy bee through the entire garden of literature, light on every blossom, collect a little nectar from each, and carry it to his hive ...
Desiderius Erasmus
#46. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#48. Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known.
Desiderius Erasmus
#49. I have turned my entire attention to Greek. The first thing I shall do, as soon as the money arrives, is to buy some Greek authors; after that, I shall buy clothes.
Desiderius Erasmus
#51. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#52. By identifying the new learning with heresy, you make orthodoxy synonymous with ignorance.
Desiderius Erasmus
#53. Now what else is the whole life of mortals, but a sort of comedy in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each ones part until the manager walks them off the stage?
Desiderius Erasmus
#54. We being satiate with continual wars, let the desire of peace a little move us.
Desiderius Erasmus
#55. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#57. Before you sleep, read something that is exquisite, and worth remembering.
Desiderius Erasmus
#58. They are looking in utter darkness for that which has no existence whatsoever.
Desiderius Erasmus
#59. By burning Luther's books you may rid your bookshelves of him, but you will not rid men's minds of him.
Desiderius Erasmus
#61. Dulce bellum inexpertis. - War is lovely for those who know nothing about it.
Desiderius Erasmus
#63. It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.
Desiderius Erasmus
#64. Great abundance of riches cannot be gathered and kept by any man without sin.
Desiderius Erasmus
#66. Tis the part of a truly prudent man not to be wise beyond his condition, but either to take no notice of what the world does, or run with it for company
Desiderius Erasmus
#67. The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are.
Desiderius Erasmus
#68. Luther was guilty of two great crimes - he struck the Pope in his crown, and the monks in their belly.
Desiderius Erasmus
#69. Many times what cannot be refuted by arguments can be parried by laughter.
Desiderius Erasmus
#70. At last concluded that no creature was more miserable than man, for that all other creatures are content with those bounds that nature set them, only man endeavors to exceed them.
Desiderius Erasmus
#71. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#73. Everyone knows that by far the happiest and universally enjoyable age of man is the first. What is there about babies which makes us hug and kiss and fondle them, so that even an enemy would give them help at that age?
Desiderius Erasmus
#74. Our determination to imitiate Christ should be such that we have no time for other matters.
Desiderius Erasmus
#75. Do not be guilty of possessing a library of learned books while lacking learning yourself.
Desiderius Erasmus
#76. Whether a party can have much success without a woman present I must ask others to decide, but one thing is certain, no party is any fun unless seasoned with folly.
Desiderius Erasmus
#77. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#78. The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is.
Desiderius Erasmus
#79. It is folly alone that stays the fugue of Youth and beats off touring Old Age.
Desiderius Erasmus
#80. God has administered to us of the present age, a bitter draught and a harsh physician, on account of our abounding infirmities.
Desiderius Erasmus
#81. And so when the whole man will be outside himself, and happy for no reason except that he is so outside himself, he will enjoy some of the ineffable share in the supreme good which draws everything into itself.
Desiderius Erasmus
#82. Love that has nothing but beauty to keep it in good health is short-lived.
Desiderius Erasmus
#83. Given a choice between a folly and a sacrament, one should always choose the folly - because we know a sacrament will not bring us closer to god and there's always the chance that a folly will.
Desiderius Erasmus
#85. When I get a little money, I buy books. If any is left, I buy food and clothes.
Desiderius Erasmus
#88. Reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance; but revelry is the same flower, when rank and running to seed.
Desiderius Erasmus
#89. For anyone who loves intensely lives not in himself but in the object of his love, and the further he can move out of himself into his love, the happier he is.
Desiderius Erasmus
#90. Nowadays the rage for possession has got to such a pitch that there is nothing in the realm of nature, whether sacred or profane, out of which profit cannot be squeezed.
Desiderius Erasmus
#91. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#92. Everybody hates a prodigy, detests an old head on young shoulders.
Desiderius Erasmus
#93. Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another.
Desiderius Erasmus
#94. If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don't do it, and it won't happen.
Desiderius Erasmus
#95. The nearer people approach old age the closer they return to a semblance of childhood, until the time comes for them to depart this life, again like children, neither tired of living nor aware of death.
Desiderius Erasmus
#96. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
#98. I put up with this church, in the hope that one day it will become better, just as it is constrained to put up with me in the hope that I will become better.
Desiderius Erasmus
#99. 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.
Desiderius Erasmus
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