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
eye rocks self
Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.
winning men self
Nothing is so foolish, they say, as for a man to stand for office and woo the crowd to win its vote, buy its support with presents, court the applause of all those fools and feel self-satisfied when they cry their approval, and then in his hour of triumph to be carried round like an effigy for the public to stare at, and end up cast in bronze to stand in the market place.
excited noise
Do not get excited over the noise you have made
bed designed hundred man nature tricks
A man must hug, and dandle, and kistle, and play a hundred little tricks with his bed-fellow when he is disposed to make that use of her that nature designed her for
attention buy entire greek money shall soon turned
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.
blind country king man
In the country of the blind the one eyed man is king
women
Women, can't live with them, can't live without them.
people turn
There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.
kings teaching hard-work
For them it's out-of-date and outmoded to perform miracles; teaching the people is too like hard work, interpreting the holy scriptures is for schoolmen and praying is a waste of time; to shed tears is weak and womanish, to be needy is degrading; to suffer defeat is a disgrace and hardly fitting for one who scarcely permits the greatest of kings to kiss the toes of his sacred feet; and finally, death is an unattractive prospect, and dying on a cross would be an ignominious end.
mind body wedlock
The wedlocks of minds will be greater than that of bodies.
wine beer bread
A good prince will tax as lightly as possible those commodities which are used by the poorest members of society: grain, bread, beer, wine, clothing, and all other staples without which human life could not exist.
long soul world
From hence, no question, has sprung an observation ... confirmed now into a settled opinion, that some long experienced souls in the world, before their dislodging, arrive to the height of prophetic spirits.
two evil two-evils
Of two evils choose the least.
time determination persistence
Our determination to imitiate Christ should be such that we have no time for other matters.