Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians. - Erasmus

In regione caecorum rex est luscus / In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king

How fleeting, how brief, how fragile is the life of a man, and how subject to misfortune, assailed already by a multitude of diseases and accidents, buildings which collapse, shipwrecks, earthquakes, lightning! We do not need to add war to our woes, and yet it causes more woe than all the others.

Başınıza taş düşerse bu sahiden kötüdür; ama utanç, şerefsizlik, ayıp ya da hakaret, ancak sen aldırırsan kötü olur. His yoksa kötülük de yoktur. Halk var gücüyle seni ıslıklarken, sen kendini alkışlarsan, bunun ne zararı olabilir? İşte kendini alkışlamanı mümkün kılan tek şey Deliliktir.