Erasmus Quotes

[Retirement] is a dangerous experiment, and generally ends in either drunkenness or hypochrondriacism.

Life is a forced state! I am surprized that we live, rather than that our friends die.

To know nothing is the happiest life.

Do not put chewed bones back on plates. Instead, throw them on the floor for the dog.

Modern church music is so constructed that the congregation cannot hear one distinct word.

'Tis an easier matter to raise the devil than to lay him.

The opinion formulated by the Church has more value in my eyes than human reasons, whatever they may be.

Retain the wind by compressing the belly.

Dulce bellum inexpertis. - War is lovely for those who know nothing about it.

Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known. This was the sound conclusion of the Academic sceptics, who were the least surly of philosophers.

...it is a sneaking piece of cowardice for authors to put feigned names to their works, as if, like bastards of their brain, they were afraid to own them.

In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling.

The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is.

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

In his last years Linacre gave up medicine for the Church and then for the first time read the gospels. On so doing he exclaimed, 'Either this is not the gospel or we are not Christians.

Nothing doth worse become a man (I will not say a Christian man) than war.

Moreover God hath ordained man in this world, as it were, the very image of himself, to the intent, that he, as it were a god on earth, should provide for the wealth of all creatures.

We being satiate with continual wars, let the desire of peace a little move us.

I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree.

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

In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

Betwixt the devil and the deap sea.

He does good to himself who does good to his friend.

No one is to be despaired of as long as he breathes. (While there is life there is hope.)

He who shuns the millstone shuns the meal.

When I get a little money I buy books and if any is left I buy food and clothes.

Women, can't live with them, can't live without them.

Humility is truth.