Erasmus Quotes

cual si la Naturaleza — respondería yo — hubiera tenido al crear al hombre una ley distinta de la que tuvo al crear a los demás seres, y como si ella que con tanta exquisita solicitud cuidó de los mosquitos, de las hierbas y de las florecillas, solamente se hubiera dormido al formar al ser humano

ad Graecas literas totum animum applicui; statimque ut pecuniam accepero, Graecos primum autores, deinde vestes emam

For what that passes among mortals everywhere is not full of folly, done be fools in the presence of fools?

Dve smetnje, uglavnom, ne dopuštaju čoveku da dođe do saznanja: stid kojim se zaslepljuje duh i strah koji u svemu vidi opasnost i obeshrabruje čoveka u njegovoj delatnosti. Ludost sjajno oslobađa svih tih teškoća. Mali broj ljudi zna koliko koristi i ugodnosti donosi preimućstvo da te nikad ničega nije stid i da te nikad nije strah!

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.

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.

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

What is a mistake in other people is a crime in the prince.

Turn the pages of history and you will always find the morality of an age reflecting the life of its prince.

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

aquel que recibe la misión de gobernar los pueblos, ha de ocuparse de los intereses comunes, no de los suyos; ha de pensar exclusivamente en la utilidad general, pues siendo al mismo tiempo autor y ejecutor de las leyes, no debe apartarse de ellas ni en un ápice, y ha de procurar, en fin, que se vea en su persona una garantía de la integridad de los ministros y magistrados.

In fact 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 evil of wisdom shall not spread further throughout mankind

Not that I would want anyone to be forcibly deprived of his goods, but some system should be operated to prevent the wealth of the many from being allocated to the few.

dulce es la guerra para los que no la han experimentado.

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.