Desiderius Erasmus Quotes
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People who use their erudition to write for a learned minority... don't seem to me favored by fortune but rather to be pitied for their continuous self-torture. They add, change, remove, lay aside, take up, rephrase, show to their friends, keep for nine years and are never satisfied. And their futile reward, a word of praise from a handful of people, they win at such a cost -- so many late nights, such loss of sleep, sweetest of all things, and so much sweat and anguish... their health deteriorates, their looks are destroyed, they suffer partial or total blindness, poverty, ill-will, denial of pleasure, premature old age and early death.
By Desiderius Erasmus
Picture the prince, such as most of them are today: a man ignorant of the law, well-nigh an enemy to his people's advantage, while intent on his personal convenience, a dedicated voluptuary, a hater of learning, freedom and truth, without a thought for the interests of his country, and measuring everything in terms of his own profit and desires.
By Desiderius Erasmus
When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.
By Desiderius Erasmus
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.
By Desiderius Erasmus
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.
By Desiderius Erasmus
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.
By Desiderius Erasmus
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.
By Desiderius Erasmus
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?
By Desiderius Erasmus
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.
By Desiderius Erasmus
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.
By Desiderius Erasmus
What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.
By Desiderius Erasmus
Great eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, or honor, cannot exist without sin.
By Desiderius Erasmus
Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.
By Desiderius Erasmus
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?
By Desiderius Erasmus
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.
By Desiderius Erasmus
When I get a little money, I buy books. And if there is any left over, I buy food.
By Desiderius Erasmus
Our determination to imitiate Christ should be such that we have no time for other matters.
By Desiderius Erasmus
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
[In regione caecorum rex est luscus.]
[In regione caecorum rex est luscus.]
By Desiderius Erasmus
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In regione caecorum rex est luscus.
By Desiderius Erasmus
The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.
By Desiderius Erasmus