Desiderius Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

Retain the wind by compressing the belly. — 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

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

For them it's out-of-date and outmoded to perform miracles; teaching the people is too like hard work, interpreting the holy scriptures is for schoolmen and praying is a waste of time;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

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

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

I hate one that remembers what's done over the cup. — Desiderius Erasmus

Man is to man either a god or a wolf. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war. — Desiderius Erasmus

Dulce bellum inexpertis. - War is lovely for those who know nothing about it. — Desiderius Erasmus

Why are you worried about him? Des is a punk. (Urian)
Desiderius is dead. Kyrian killed him. (Tabitha)
Yeah, and I'm the Easter Bunny- see my fluffy tail? You don't just kill a Spathi, little girl. All you do is take him out of commission for a while. (Urian) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I consider as lovers of books not those who keep their books hidden in their store-chests and never handle them, but those who, by nightly as well as daily use thumb them, batter them, wear them out, who fill out all the margins with annotations of many kinds, and who prefer the marks of a fault they have erased to a neat copy full of faults. — 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

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

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

Yeah, well, don't worry about it. I've never met a Daimon yet I couldn't take. (Wulf)
Guess again, little brother. You just met one, and trust me, he's not like any you've ever met before. He makes Desiderius look like a pet hamster. (Acheron) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

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

As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea's foot and marveling at a midge's humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life. — 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

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

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

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

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

We being satiate with continual wars, let the desire of peace a little move us. — 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

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

Wherever you encounter truth, look upon it as Christianity. — 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

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

Knock, knock. You have the day to hide. Come nightfall, we hunt. (Desiderius)
Yeah, yeah ... you and your little dog, too. (Kyrian)
You're not scared of his threats? (Amanda)
Chere, the day I fear something like him is the day I lie down at his feet and hand him the knife to cut my heart out. The only fear I have is getting you back to your sister and convincing High Queen Hard Head to leave off this matter until I can locate Desiderius and send his soul into oblivion where it belongs. (Kyrian) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

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

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

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

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

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. — Desiderius Erasmus

Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself. — 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

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

Apothegms are in history, the same as pearls in the sand, or gold in the mine. — 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

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

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

A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit. — 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

Love that has nothing but beauty to keep it in good health is short-lived. — Desiderius Erasmus

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

The Stoics define wisdom to be conducted by reason, and folly nothing else but the being hurried by passion, lest our life should otherwise have been too dull and inactive, that creator, who out of clay first tempered and made us up, put into the composition of our humanity more than a pound of passions to an ounce of reason; and reason he confined within the narrow cells of the brain, whereas he left passions the whole body to
range in.
Farther, he set up two sturdy champions to stand
perpetually on guard, that reason might make no assault,
surprise, nor inroad ; anger, which keeps its station in
the fortress of the heart ; and lust, which like the signs
Virgo and Scorpio, rules the appetites and passions. — Desiderius Erasmus

Frugality is a handsome income. — Desiderius Erasmus

By the time I finish with the two of you, you will be begging me to let you die. (Desiderius) Desi dearest, I have never begged a day in my life, and the sun will surely splinter before I ever plead for anything from the likes of you. (Kyrian) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

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

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

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

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

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

Prevention is better than cure. — Desiderius Erasmus

Don't give your advice before you are called upon. — Desiderius Erasmus

Humanists were people who wanted to return to ideas found in old Greek and Latin writing of Greece and Rome, written many centuries earlier. Christian Humanists also wanted to get back to these ideas, but they were mainly concerned with learning about the early Christian Church, before it had become involved with money-making and superstition. They wanted to read the books of the early Church, especially the gospels of Christ, in the original language of Greek, so that they would know exactly what the writings meant. The leader of the Christian Humanists was Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), who attacked superstitions in the Catholic Church in his writing. — Michael A. Mullett

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

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

By identifying the new learning with heresy, you make orthodoxy synonymous with ignorance. — Desiderius Erasmus