Erasmus Quotes

50 Sourced Quotes

I am a citizen of the world, known to all and to all a stranger.

Erasmus
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.

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

Erasmus
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.

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
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
The majority of the common people loathe war and pray for peace; only a handful of individuals, whose evil joys depend on general misery, desire war.

Erasmus
Do not be guilty of possessing a library of learned books while lacking learning yourself.

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

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
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.

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

Erasmus
I have turned my entire attention to Greek. The first thing I shall do, as soon as the money arrives, is to buy some Greek authors; after that, I shall buy clothes.

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

Erasmus
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.

Erasmus
An idea launched like a javelin in proverbial form strikes with sharper point on the hearer's mind and leaves implanted barbs for meditation.

Erasmus
There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.

Erasmus