Erasmus (c.1466–1536,) fully Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, Dutch name Gerhard Gerhards, was a Dutch humanist and scholar. He was one of the most influential figures of the Renaissance in northern Europe. Writing extensively on both theological and secular themes, he was the first to achieve reputation through the printed word.
Born an illegitimate son of a priest in Rotterdam, Erasmus was ordained in 1492 and studied in Paris. From 1499, he adopted the life of an independent scholar, moving from city to city tutoring, lecturing, and corresponding with scholars throughout Europe.
Erasmus published his own Greek edition of the New Testament (1516,) followed by a Latin translation. He also wrote Encomium Moriae (1509, ‘In Praise of Folly’) and edited the works of Saint Jerome, Saint Thomas More, and other early Christian theologians.
Among Erasmus’s original works, Enchiridion Militis Christiani (1503, ‘Manual of the Christian Knight’) stressed ascetic piety as an ideal of Christianity and called for reform of the Church. Erasmus’s rejection of the doctrine of predestination and the scope of papal authority generated much controversy.
Erasmus paved the way for the Reformation with his satires on the Catholic Church, including the Colloquia Familiaria (1518, ‘Colloquies.’) Although his works influenced Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers, Erasmus sought change from within the Catholic Church and disagreed with the course of the Reformation. In De Libero Arbitrio (1524,’ On the Bondage of the Will,’) he clashed openly with Luther.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Desiderius Erasmus
A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Unhappiness, Habits, Habit
Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men’s judgments of one another.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Critics, Criticism
War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: War
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: Literature, Books
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
It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Joy, Happiness, Being Ourselves, Awareness, Being True to Yourself, Realization, Acceptance
It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn’t have it, to fear and suspect the worst.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Pessimism
Experience is the common school-house of fools and ill men.—Men of wit and honesty are otherwise instructed.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Experience
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
Topics: Age
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: Children, Babies, Family
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
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
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: Queens, Kings, Royalty
Everybody hates a prodigy, detests an old head on young shoulders.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Genius
Apothegms are in history, the same as pearls in the sand, or gold in the mine.
—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
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
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
The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Doctors, Medicine
Heaven grant that the burden you carry may have as easy an exit as it had an entrance.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Prayer
Your library is your paradise.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Paradise, Libraries
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
Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known.
—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
Topics: Lawyers, Law
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
Man’s mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Deception, Deception/Lying
Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Light
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
Topics: Philosophy, Philosophers
Fortune favors the audacious.
—Desiderius Erasmus
Topics: Courage, Fortune
There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.
—Desiderius Erasmus
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