Everybody hates a prodigy, detests an old head on young shoulders.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Genius
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
Concealed talent brings no reputation.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Talent, Reputation
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
Topics: Intelligence, Intellectuals
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. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Insanity
Heaven grant that the burden you carry may have as easy an exit as it had an entrance.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Prayer
For them it’s out-of-date and outmoded to perform miracles; teaching the people is too like hard work, interpreting the holy scriptures is for schoolmen and praying is a waste of time;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
Topics: Religion
A good portion of speaking will consist in knowing how to lie.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Speaking
Experience is the common school-house of fools and ill men.—Men of wit and honesty are otherwise instructed.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Experience
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
A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Habit, Unhappiness, Habits
Great eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, or honor, cannot exist without sin.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Enthusiasm
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
Topics: Communism, Socialism
Man’s mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Deception, Deception/Lying
There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.
—Desiderius Erasmus
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
No one respects a talent that is concealed.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Talent
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
Topics: Law, Lawyers
The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Ability
Your library is your paradise.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Paradise, Libraries
Fools are without number.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Fools, Foolishness
As Plato entertained some friends in a room where there was a couch richly ornamented, Diogenes came in very dirty, as usual, and getting upon the couch, and trampling on it, said, “I trample upon the pride of Plato.” Plato mildly answered, “But with greater pride, Diogenes!”
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Pride
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
He who allows oppression shares the crime.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Oppression
It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn’t have it, to fear and suspect the worst.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Pessimism
The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Medicine, Doctors
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
Topics: Passion
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
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
It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Joy, Happiness, Acceptance, Realization, Awareness, Being Ourselves, Being True to Yourself
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Corrie Ten Boom Dutch Jewish Humanist
- 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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