76 Enlightening Quotes By Desiderius Erasmus, The Great Humanist And Scholar

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

  

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.

  

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?

  

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

  

Fools are without number.

  

Concealed talent brings no reputation.

  

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

Like

  

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

  

Whether a party can have much success without a woman present I must ask others to decide, but one thing is certain, no party is any fun unless seasoned with folly.

  

Prevention is better than cure.

  

There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.

  

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

  

Fortune favors the audacious.

  

Man is to man either a god or a wolf.

  

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

  

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?

Think

  

Reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance; but revelry is the same flower, when rank and running to seed.

  

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.

  

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

  

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.

  

Women, can't live with them, can't live without them.

  

Time takes away the grief of men.

Time

  

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

  

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

  

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

  

In the country of the blind the one eyed man is king.

  

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

  

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

  

No one respects a talent that is concealed.

  

To know nothing is the happiest life.

Life

  

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.

Never

  

Humility is truth.

  

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

  

Your library is your paradise.

  

The desire to write grows with writing.

  

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

  

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

  

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

  

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

  

He who allows oppression shares the crime.

  

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

  

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

Experience

  

Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians.

  

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

  

Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.

  

‎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.

  

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

Peace

  

Bidden or unbidden, God is present.

  

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

  

Now what else is the whole life of mortals, but a sort of comedy in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each ones part until the manager walks them off the stage?

Life

  

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

  

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.

  

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.

  

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

  

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.

  

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

  

War is sweet to those who have not experienced it.

  

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

  

...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.

Like

  

I put up with this church, in the hope that one day it will become better, just as it is constrained to put up with me in the hope that I will become better.

Me

  

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

  

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

  

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

Like

  

How do you like our England, you will say? Believe me when I assure you that I have never liked anything as much before.

Like , Me , Never

  

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.

  

Sreća voli one koji ne razmišljaju mnogo, voli smelije ljude i one koji sve stavljaju na kocku. Mudrost stvara strašljivce.

  

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.

Life , Like , Time

  

I know this is overused...but it is accurate! When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.

  

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

  

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

  

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

  

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.

  

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

  

Bir hükümdar öyle bir konumdadır ki, doÄŸruluktan azıcık bel verse bu büyük bir veba gibi yayılarak bütün halkı sarar.

  

Ä°nsanların çoÄŸu aslında delidir, hayır ÅŸöyle demeliyiz, çeÅŸitli ÅŸekillerde delirmeyen kimse yoktur, bu yüzden zorunluluk benzerini benzeriyle buluÅŸturur.

  

DoÄŸa sahte renklerden nefret eder.