Desiderius Erasmus Quotes & Sayings

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

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

Fools are without number. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

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

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

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

Invoked or not invoked, the god is present. — Desiderius Erasmus

It is wiser to treat men and things as though we held this world the common fatherland of all. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

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

For them it's out-of-date and outmoded to perform miracles; teaching the people is too like hard work, interpreting the holy scriptures is for schoolmen and praying is a waste of time;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. — Desiderius Erasmus

Humility is truth. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

Christians would show sense if they dispatched these argumentative Scotists and pigheaded Ockhamists and undefeated Albertists along with the whole regiment of Sophists to fight the Turks and Saracens instead of sending those armies of dull-witted soldiers with whom they've long been carrying on war with no result. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

Of two evils choose the least. — Desiderius Erasmus

There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect. — Desiderius Erasmus

Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth. — Desiderius Erasmus

By a Carpenter mankind was made, and only by that Carpenter can mankind be remade. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

Time takes away the grief of men. — Desiderius Erasmus

The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth — Desiderius Erasmus

To know nothing is the happiest life. — Desiderius Erasmus

He who shuns the millstone, shuns the meal. — Desiderius Erasmus

The wedlocks of minds will be greater than that of bodies. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

[Only by] the good influence of our conduct may we bring salvation in human affairs; or like a fatal comet we may bring destruction in our train. — 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. — Desiderius Erasmus

War is delightful for those who don't know it — Desiderius Erasmus

No one respects a talent that is concealed. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

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. — Desiderius Erasmus

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. — Desiderius Erasmus

It is folly alone that stays the fugue of Youth and beats off touring Old Age. — 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. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

Just as nothing is more foolish than misplaced wisdom, so too, nothing is more imprudent than perverse prudence. And surely it is perverse not to adapt yourself to the prevailing circumstances, to refuse 'to do as the Romans do,' to ignore the party-goer's maxium 'take a drink or take your leave,' to insist that the play should not be a play. True prudence, on the other hand, recognizes human limitations and does not strive to leap beyond them; it is willing to run with the herd, to overlook faults tolerantly or to share them in a friendly spirit. But, they say, that is exactly what we mean by folly. (I will hardly deny it
as long as they will reciprocate by admitting that this is exactly what is means to perform the play of life.) — Desiderius Erasmus

It is a greater advantage to be honestly educated than honorably born. — Desiderius Erasmus

Read first the best books. The important thing for you is not how much you know, but the quality of what you know. — 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. — Desiderius Erasmus

War is sweet to those who have not experienced it. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

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

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

In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can't long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

Surely there is nothing so ungracious, nor nothing so cruel, but men will hold therewith, if it be once approved by custom. — Desiderius Erasmus

Fortune favours the audacious. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

War is sweet to those who haven't tasted it. Dulce bellum inexpertis. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

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

There is no joy in possession without sharing. — Desiderius Erasmus

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. — Desiderius Erasmus

Great abundance of riches cannot be gathered and kept by any man without sin. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

Frugality is a handsome income. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

'Tis an easier matter to raise the devil than to lay him. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

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

Eagles don't catch flies. — 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? — Desiderius Erasmus

Providence has decreed that those common acquisitions, money, gems, plate, noble mansions, and dominion, should be sometimes bestowed on the indolent and unworthy; but those things which constitute our true riches, and which are properly our own, must be procured by our own labor. — Desiderius Erasmus

Luther was guilty of two great crimes - he struck the Pope in his crown, and the monks in their belly. — Desiderius Erasmus

The opinion formulated by the Church has more value in my eyes than human reasons, whatever they may be. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes. — Desiderius Erasmus

They are looking in utter darkness for that which has no existence whatsoever. — Desiderius Erasmus

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 ... — Desiderius Erasmus

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

Everybody hates a prodigy, detests an old head on young shoulders. — Desiderius Erasmus

The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

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

And what is all this life but a kind of comedy, wherein men walk up and down in one another's disguises and act their respective parts, till the property-man brings them back to the attiring house. And yet he often orders a different dress, and makes him that came but just now off in the robes of a king put on the rags of a beggar. Thus are all things represented by counterfeit, and yet without this there was no living. — Desiderius Erasmus

Be careful not to be the first to put your hands in the dish. What you cannot hold in your hands you must put on your plate. Also it is a great breach of etiquette when your fingers are dirty and greasy, to bring them to your mouth in order to lick them, or to clean them on your jacket. It would be more decent to use the tablecloth. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

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

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is. — 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. — Desiderius Erasmus

A good portion of speaking will consist in knowing how to lie. — Desiderius Erasmus

When I get a little money, I buy books. If any is left, I buy food and clothes. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

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

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

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

By burning Luther's books you may rid your bookshelves of him, but you will not rid men's minds of him. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

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

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

The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly. — Desiderius Erasmus

Do not put chewed bones back on plates. Instead, throw them on the floor for the dog. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

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