Desiderius Erasmus

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.

— Desiderius Erasmus

The desire to write grows with writing.

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

To know nothing is the happiest life.

— Desiderius Erasmus

Man is to man either a god or a wolf.

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius 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.

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

Your library is your paradise.

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

Animals only follow their natural instincts; but man, unless he has experienced the influence of learning and philosophy, is at the mercy of impulses that are worse than those of a wild beast. There is no beast more savage and dangerous than a human being who is swept along by the passions of ambition, greed, anger, envy, extravagance, and sensuality.

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius 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.

— Desiderius 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.

— Desiderius 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.

— Desiderius 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.

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

I am a lover of liberty. I will not and I cannot serve a party.

— Desiderius Erasmus

There is no doubt about Martin Luther's marriage, but the rumour about his wife's early confinement is false; she is said however to be pregnant now. If there is truth in the popular legend, that Antichrist will be born from a monk and a nun (which is the story these people keep putting about), how many thousands of Antichrists the world must have already!

— Desiderius Erasmus

The world thought well of my schoolmaster guardian, because he was neither a liar, nor a scamp, nor a gambler; but he was coarse, avaricious, and ignorant; he knew nothing beyond the confused lessons which he taught to his classes. He imagined that in forcing a youth to become a monk he would be offering a sacrifice acceptable to God. He used to boast of the many victims which he devoted annually to Dominic and Francis and Benedict.

— Desiderius Erasmus

Wherever you encounter truth, look upon it as Christianity.

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius 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.

— Desiderius Erasmus

Most Christians are superstitious rather than pious, and except for the name of Christ differ hardly at all from superstitious pagans.

— Desiderius Erasmus

Whatever you see in the more material part of yourself, learn to refer to God and to the invisible part of yourself. In that way, whatever offers itself to the senses will become for you an occasion for the practice of piety.

— Desiderius Erasmus

You venerate the saints, and you take pleasure in touching their relics. But you disregard their greatest legacy, the example of a blameless life. No devotion is more pleasing to Mary than the imitation of Mary's humility. No devotion is more acceptable and proper to the saints than striving to imitate their virtues.

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius 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.

— Desiderius 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."

— Desiderius Erasmus

We must learn how to imitate Cicero from Cicero himself. Let us imitate him as he imitated others.

— Desiderius Erasmus

Time takes away the grief of men.

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius 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?

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

Time takes away the grief of men.

— Desiderius Erasmus