Erasmus Quotes

Pico della Mirandola escribe hacia esta época su Discurso sobre la dignidad humana, en el que otorga al ser humano tanto la capacidad como la obligación de ser lo suficientemente noble para responder a la alta misión de llegar a comprender la unidad del cosmos en su divinidad.

"Dulce bellum inexpertis

"War is very sweet to those who have never tried it.

To know nothing is the only happiness,

Stoacılara göre bilge olmak, aklı rehber almaktır; Deli olmak ise kendini tutkuların akışına bırakmaktır.

so sweet a thing it is not to be wise, that on the contrary men rather pray against anything than folly.

Eski bir deyiş vardır: Hafızası güçlü bir içki yoldaşından nefret ederim. Buna ben yeni bir deyiş ekliyorum: Hafızası güçlü bir dinleyiciden nefret ederim. Öyleyse, haydi bana eyvallah, alkışlayın, yaşayın, için, ey deliliğin seçkin erenleri.

Peu de gens comprennent l'immense avantage qu'il y a à ne jamais hésiter et à tout oser.

For Xenophon in his Oeconomicus rightly considers, that there is something beyond human nature, something wholly divine, in absolute rule over free and willing subjects.

If a rock falls on your head it does positive harm, but shame, disgrace, reproaches and insults are damaging only in so far as you're conscious of them.

cuanto más perfecto es el amor, mayor es la locura, y mayor la felicidad.

The working of miracles is old and out-dated; to teach the people is too laborious; to interpret scripture is to invade the prerogative of the schoolmen; to pray is too idle; to shed tears is cowardly and unmanly; to fast is too mean and sordid; to be easy and familiar is beneath the grandeur of him, who, without being sued to and intreated, will scarce give princes the honour of kissing his toe; finally, to die for religion is too self-denying; and to be crucified as their Lord of Life, is base and ignominious.

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.

And therefore suppose that Plato dreamed of somewhat like it when he called the madness of lovers the most happy condition of all others. For he that’s violently in love lives not in his own body but in the thing he loves; and by how much the farther he runs from himself into another, by so much the greater is his pleasure

Para el espíritu libre e independiente, que ni quiere atarse por ningún dogmani decidirse por ningún partido, en ninguna parte hay un hogar sobre la tierra”.

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.