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
Topics: Babies, Children, Family
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
Topics: Royalty, Kings, Queens
Prevention is better than cure.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Medicine
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
Topics: Books, Literature
The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Ability
Concealed talent brings no reputation.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Reputation, Talent
A good portion of speaking will consist in knowing how to lie.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Speaking
Man’s mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Deception/Lying, Deception
Fools are without number.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Foolishness, Fools
He does good to himself who does good to his friend.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Friendship
There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Great eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, or honor, cannot exist without sin.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Enthusiasm
Heaven grant that the burden you carry may have as easy an exit as it had an entrance.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Prayer
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.
—Desiderius Erasmus
It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn’t have it, to fear and suspect the worst.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Pessimism
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
Topics: Humanity, Human Nature
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
Topics: Politics
This I always religiously observed, as a rule, says one, never to chide my husband before company, nor to prattle abroad of miscarriages at home. What passes between two people is much easier made up than when once it has taken air.
—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
Topics: Hunting
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
Topics: Evil
Time takes away the grief of men.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Grief, Grieving
Love that has nothing but beauty to keep it in good health, is short-lived, and apt to have ague-fits.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Love
It is useless to gather virtues without humility, for the spirit of the Lord delighteth to dwell in the hearts of the humble.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Humility
War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: War
Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Light
A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Unhappiness, Habits, Habit
Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Fortune favors the audacious.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Courage, Fortune
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
Topics: Learning
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
Topics: Illusion
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Corrie Ten Boom Dutch Evangelist
- Henri Nouwen Dutch Catholic Priest
- Thomas Aquinas Italian Catholic Priest
- Baruch Spinoza Dutch Philosopher
- Pope John Paul II Polish Catholic Religious Leader
- Blaise Pascal French Philosopher, Scientist
- Aldous Huxley English Humanist
- Etty Hillesum Jewish Diarist
- Vincent van Gogh Dutch Painter
- John Henry Newman British Theologian, Poet
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