Top 100 Quotes About Erasmus
#1. All Europe, including Erasmus, has followed Luther.
Julien Benda
#2. there is the truism, so ably articulated by Luther in his response to Erasmus on the will, that the task of the preacher is to preach God's Word, not to second-guess what the practical problems such causes may
Andrew David Naselli
#3. He [Erasmus Darwin] used to say that 'unitarianism was a feather-bed to catch a falling Christian.
Charles Darwin
#4. IN ONE OF HIS letters to Erasmus, Luther said, "YOUR thoughts of God are too human." Probably
Arthur W. Pink
#5. Erasmus says if you must be hanged let it be on fair gallows.
Susan Vreeland
#6. He looks down at them and arranges his face. Erasmus says that you must do this each morning before you leave your house: put on a mask, as it were.
Hilary Mantel
#7. Erasmus was like Serena in a sense: he frequently needed to prune and weed the human race in his own garden.
Brian Herbert
#9. When the adversaries of Erasmus had got the Trinity into his edition, they threw by their manuscript as an old almanac out of date.
Isaac Newton
#10. My law-givers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul.
E. M. Forster
#11. What Erasmus called ingratitudo vulgi, the ingratitude of the masses, is increasing in the age of globalization and the Internet.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
#12. Erasmus's Bible-saturated mind. His was a mind too broad for fundamentalism, which rejects reason, and too honest for intellectualism, which rejects revelation.
John Mark Reynolds
#13. Here again Diatribe confidently brings in a gloss to suit herself, just as if Scripture were under her complete control. As for considering the prophet's meaning and intention, what need was there for a man of such authority to do that? All we need is: Erasmus says so, therefore it is so.
Martin Luther
#14. Erasmus says that you should praise a ruler even for qualities he does not have. For the flattery gives him to think. And the qualities he presently lacks, he might go to work on them.
Hilary Mantel
#15. Christianity, said Erasmus, has been made to consist not in loving one's neighbor but in abstaining from butter and cheese during Lent.
Roland H. Bainton
#16. A nation may be in a tumult to-day for a thought which the timid Erasmus placidly penned in his study more than two centuries ago.
Edwin Percy Whipple
#17. From you, my dear Erasmus, let me obtain this request, that just as I bear with your ignorance in these matters, so you in turn will bear with my lack of eloquence.
Martin Luther
#18. Erasmus's The Praise of Folly. According to a footnote, the argument of the growing heap is: If ten coins are not enough to make a man rich, what if you add one coin? What if you add another? Finally, you will have to say that no one can be rich unless one coin can make him so.
Gretchen Rubin
#19. No seventeenth-century pedagogue would have publicly advised his disciple, as did Erasmus in his Dialogues, on the choice of a good prostitute.
Michel Foucault
#20. Erasmus of Rotterdam, a sixteenth-century priest who was committed to reforming the church from within, said, When faith came to be in writings rather than in hearts, contention grew hot and love grew cold. That which is forced cannot be sincere, and that which is not voluntary cannot please Christ.
Shane Claiborne
#21. I do not say, however, that every delusion or wandering of the mind should be called madness. Erasmus of Rotterdam, The Praise of Folly There
Samuel R. Delany
#22. Let God be good," cried Erasmus the moralist. "Let God be God," replied Luther the theologian. Although
Timothy George
#23. 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
#24. Modern church music is so constructed that the congregation cannot hear one distinct word.
Desiderius Erasmus
#26. 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
#27. Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form: Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, And soars and shines, another and the same.
Erasmus Darwin
#28. 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
#29. What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.
Desiderius Erasmus
#30. 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
#32. Nothing doth worse become a man (I will not say a Christian man) than war.
Desiderius Erasmus
#33. Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.
Desiderius Erasmus
#34. He who allows oppression shares the crime.
Erasmus
#36. It is wiser to treat men and things as though we held this world the common fatherland of all.
Desiderius Erasmus
#37. The mass starts into a million suns; Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, And second planets issue from the first.
Erasmus Darwin
#40. Soon shall thy arm, UNCONQUER'D STEAM! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying-chariot through the fields of air.
Erasmus Darwin
#41. 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
#42. It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn't have it, to fear and suspect the worst.
Desiderius Erasmus
#43. 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
#44. War is sweet to those who haven't tasted it. Dulce bellum inexpertis.
Desiderius Erasmus
#46. For what is there at all done among men that is not full of folly, and that too from fools and to fools? Against
Erasmus
#48. 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
#50. He may lawfully praise himself that lives far from neighbors." Though,
Erasmus
#51. Yet in the midst of all their prosperity, princes in this respect seem to me most unfortunate, because, having no one to tell them truth, they are forced to receive flatterers for friends.
Erasmus
#52. The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly.
Desiderius Erasmus
#54. Such is the condition of organic nature! whose first law might be expressed in the words 'Eat or be eaten!' and which would seem to be one great slaughter-house, one universal scene of rapacity and injustice!
Erasmus Darwin
#55. It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay to antiquity its due reverence.
Desiderius Erasmus
#56. 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
#57. 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
#60. There are others who are rich only in wishes; they build beautiful air-castles and conceive that doing so is enough for happiness.
Erasmus
#63. What is more fawning than a dog? And yet what is more faithful? What is more fond and caressing than a squirrel? But where will you find a better friend to man?
Erasmus
#64. 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
#65. Conniving at your friends' vices, passing them over, being blind to them and deceived by them, even loving and admiring your friends' egregious faults as if they were virtues -- does not this seem pretty close to folly?
Erasmus
#66. The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth
Desiderius Erasmus
#67. 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?
Desiderius Erasmus
#68. No radiant pearl, which crested Fortune wears, No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty's wars. Not the bright stars which Night's blue arch adorn, Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn, Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.
Erasmus Darwin
#69. To respect the cat is the beginning of the aesthetic sense.
Erasmus Darwin
#71. 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
#72. 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
#74. Young bodies are like tender plants, which grow and become hardened to whatever shape you've trained them.
Desiderius Erasmus
#75. Bidden or unbidden, God is present.
Erasmus
#76. Your library is your paradise.
Erasmus
#77. Opium is the only drug to' be rely'd on-all the boasted nostrums only take up time, and as the disease [is] often of short duration, or of small quantity, they have gain'd credit which they do not deserve.
Erasmus Darwin
#81. 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
#82. 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
#83. It is a greater advantage to be honestly educated than honorably born.
Desiderius Erasmus
#85. Ask a wise man to dinner and he'll upset everyone by his gloomy silence or tiresome questions. Invite him to a dance and you'll have a camel prancing about. Haul him off to a public entertainment and his face will be enough to spoil the people's entertainment.
Desiderius Erasmus
#86. Surely there is nothing so ungracious, nor nothing so cruel, but men will hold therewith, if it be once approved by custom.
Desiderius Erasmus
#87. Do but observe our grim philosophers that are perpetually beating their brains on knotty subjects, and for the most part you'll find them grown old before they are scarcely young. And
Erasmus
#88. It's the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide.
Desiderius Erasmus
#89. The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes.
Desiderius Erasmus
#90. There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.
Desiderius Erasmus
#92. 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
#93. 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
#94. Again what city ever received Plato's or Aristotle's laws, or Socrates' precepts? But,
Erasmus
#95. 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
#96. 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
#98. Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known.
Desiderius Erasmus
#99. The great CREATOR of all things has infinitely diversified the works of his hands, but has at the same time stamped a certain similitude on the features of nature, that demonstrates to us, that the whole is one family of one parent.
Erasmus Darwin
#100. 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
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