Quotes from Desiderius Erasmus

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

They may attack me with an army of six hundred syllogisms; and if I do not recant, they will proclaim me a heretic.

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.

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

To know nothing is the happiest life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Heaven grant that the burden you carry may have as easy an exit as it had an entrance. -- Prayer To A Pregnant Woman

No one respects a talent that is concealed.

Our determination to imitiate Christ should be such that we have no time for other matters.

The pleasures which we most rarely experience give us the greatest delight.

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.

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.

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

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.

Eagles don't catch flies.

Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.

Man is to man either a god or a wolf.

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

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.

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.

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