Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth26 October 1466
book use thumbs
I consider as lovers of books not those who keep their books hidden in their store-chests and never handle them, but those who, by nightly as well as daily use thumb them, batter them, wear them out, who fill out all the margins with annotations of many kinds, and who prefer the marks of a fault they have erased to a neat copy full of faults.
christian ignorance giving
Almost all Christians being wretchedly enslaved to blindness and ignorance, which the priests are so far from preventing or removing, that they blacken the darkness, and promote the delusion: wisely foreseeing that the people (like cows, which never give down their milk so well as when they are gently stroked), would part with less if they knew more...
Invoked or not invoked, the god is present.
men differences wife
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. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.
courage favour fortune
Fortune favours the audacious.
laughter argument
Many times what cannot be refuted by arguments can be parried by laughter.
ignorance orthodoxy heresy
By identifying the new learning with heresy, you make orthodoxy synonymous with ignorance.
choices chance should
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.
devil matter easier
'Tis an easier matter to raise the devil than to lay him.
mother nature heart
Nature, more of a stepmother than a mother in several ways, has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfied with their own lot and envious of another s.
leadership courage physicians
God has administered to us of the present age, a bitter draught and a harsh physician, on account of our abounding infirmities.
men deception mind
Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.
shapes body plant
Young bodies are like tender plants, which grow and become hardened to whatever shape you've trained them.
book men mind
By burning Luther's books you may rid your bookshelves of him, but you will not rid men's minds of him.