Erasmus Quotes

Doğa sahte renklerden nefret eder.

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

Een leven zonder boeken is onleefbaar.

For anyone who loves intensely lives not in himself but in the object of his love, and the further he can move out of himself into his love, the happier he is.

Ik vervloek die mooie jongens, die het mij ontmogelijk maken van dat deel van Italië te genieten dat me dagelijks meer toelacht!

Man is a godlike animal, and free twice over: once by nature, and again by his laws.

Llevad a un sabio a un banquete y lo perturbará o con lúgubre silencio o con preguntas fastidiosas. Introducidle en un baile y os parecerá, danzando, un camello.

Next, let no one be so fond as to imagine, that I should so far stint my invention to the method of other pleaders, as first to define, and then divide my subject, i.e., myself. For it is equally hazardous to attempt the crowding her within the narrow limits of a definition, whose nature is of so diffusive an extent, or to mangle and disjoin that, to the adoration whereof all nations unitedly concur.

The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly.

To know nothing is the only happiness,

The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are.

Zu dieser Gilde der Narren gehören auch die Leute, die schon zu Lebzeiten so minutiös festlegen, mit welchem Begräbnisprunk sie beigesetzt werden wollen, dass sie sogar ausdrücklich verfügen, wie viele Fackeln, wie viele Schwarzröcke, wie viele Sänger, wie viele Trauermimen sie dabei haben wollen, gerade, als ob einer dieses Schauspiel noch mit eigenem Sinne erleben könnte oder sich die Hingegangenen schämen müssten, wenn ihr Leichnam nicht glanzvoll in die Grube fährt.

But, to return to my design, what power was it that drew those stony, oaken, and wild people into cities but flattery? For nothing else is signified by Amphion and Orpheus' harp. What was it that, when the common people of Rome were like to have destroyed all by their mutiny, reduced them to obedience? Was it a philosophical oration? Least. But a ridiculous and childish fable of the belly and the rest of the members. And as good success had Themistocles in his of the fox and hedgehog. What wise man's oration could ever have done so much with the people as Sertorius' invention of his white hind? Or his ridiculous emblem of pulling off a horse's tail hair by hair? Or as Lycurgus his example of his two whelps? To say nothing of Minos and Numa, both which ruled their foolish multitudes with fabulous inventions; with which kind of toys that great and powerful beast, the people, are led anyway.

Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.

It is not the office that brings honour to the man, but the man to the office.