Erasmus Quotes

50 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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?

Erasmus
It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldst have it, to fear and suspect the worst.

Erasmus
It is a greater advantage to be honestly educated than honorably born.

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

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.

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?

Erasmus
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.

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.

Erasmus
Of how much more passion than reason has Jupiter composed us? putting in, as one would say, "scarce half an ounce to a pound."

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

Erasmus
A constant element of enjoyment must be mingled with our studies, so that we think of learning as a game rather than a form of drudgery, for no activity can be continued for long if it does not to some extent afford pleasure to the participant.

Erasmus
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.

Erasmus
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.

Erasmus
You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay; it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn.

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

Erasmus
One nail drives out another; habit is overcome by habit.

Erasmus
We should treat them not as food but as condiments, not to sufficiency but for delight.

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.

Erasmus
If we were willing to evaluate things not according to the opinion of the crowd, but according to nature itself, how is it less repulsive to eat, chew, digest, evacuate, and sleep after the fashion of dumb animals, than to enjoy lawful and permitted carnal relations?

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

Erasmus
For what is life but a play in which everyone acts a part until the curtain comes down?

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. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.

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

Erasmus