Erasmus Quotes

Bidden or unbidden, God is present.

Frugality is a handsome income.

Great abundance of riches cannot be gathered and kept by any man without sin.

Don't give your advice before you are called upon.

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.

The desire to write grows with writing.

Time takes away the grief of men.

No one respects a talent that is concealed.

By identifying the new learning with heresy, you make orthodoxy synonymous with ignorance.

Many times what cannot be refuted by arguments can be parried by laughter.

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

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

Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam! afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car; Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear The flying chariot through the field of air.

Concealed talent brings no reputation.

Love that has nothing but beauty to keep it in good health is short-lived.

The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes.

So our student will flit like a busy bee through the entire garden of literature, light on every blossom, collect a little nectar from each, and carry it to his hive.

To respect the cat is the beginning of the aesthetic sense.

A fool is a man who never tried an experiment in his life.

The hypochondriac disease consists in indigestion and consequent flatulency, with anxiety or want of pleasurable sensation.

War is sweet to those who have not experienced it.

Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form: Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, And soars and shines, another and the same.

Of two evils choose the least.

Nowadays the rage for possession has got to such a pitch that there is nothing in the realm of nature, whether sacred or profane, out of which profit cannot be squeezed.

It's the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide.

I have turned my entire attention to Greek. The first thing I shall do, as soon as the money arrives, is to buy some Greek authors; after that, I shall buy clothes.

I much condole with you on your late loss... pains and diseases of the mind are only cured by Forgetfulness;--Reason but skins the wound, which is perpetually liable to fester again.

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.

Young bodies are like tender plants, which grow and become hardened to whatever shape you've trained them.

Man is to man either a god or a wolf.

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

Whether a party can have much success without a woman present I must ask others to decide, but one thing is certain, no party is any fun unless seasoned with folly.

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

The entire world is my temple, and a very fine one too, if I'm not mistaken, and I'll never lack priests to serve it as long as there are men.

He who shuns the millstone, shuns the meal.

If you look at history you'll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.

Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known.

[Only by] the good influence of our conduct may we bring salvation in human affairs; or like a fatal comet we may bring destruction in our train.

God has administered to us of the present age, a bitter draught and a harsh physician, on account of our abounding infirmities.

Scarcely is there any peace so unjust that it is better than even the fairest war. -Vix ulla tam iniqua pax, quin bello vel aequissimo sit potior

War is delightful for those who don't know it

E canchis amnia. Everything from shells.

A fool, Mr, Edgeworth, is one who has never made an experiment.

The mass starts into a million suns; Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, And second planets issue from the first.

Invoked or not invoked, the god is present.

It is folly alone that stays the fugue of Youth and beats off touring Old Age.

Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.

Given a choice between a folly and a sacrament, one should always choose the folly—because we know a sacrament will not bring us closer to god and there’s always the chance that a folly will.

They are looking in utter darkness for that which has no existence whatsoever.

The wedlocks of minds will be greater than that of bodies.