Desiderius Erasmus Quotes

       Desiderius Erasmus
       1466-1536
      
       Desiderius Erasmus, was born at Rotterdam, apparently on October 28, 1466, the illegitimate son of a physician's daughter by a man who afterwards turned monk. On his parents' death his guardians insisted on his entering a monastery and in the Augustinian college of Stein near Gouda he spent six years -- it was certainly this personal experience of the ways of the monks that made Erasmus their relentless enemy.
      
       In 1519 appeared the first edition of his Colloquia, usually regarded as his masterpiece. The audacity and incisiveness with which it handles the abuses of the Church prepared men's minds for the subsequent work of Martin Luther.
      
       Erasmus stands as the supreme type of cultivated common sense applied to human affairs. He rescued theology from the pedantries of the Schoolmen, exposed the abuses of the Church, and did more than any other single person to advance the Revival of Learning.

Concealed talent brings no reputation.     Topics: Apathy By burning Luther's books you may rid your bookshelves of him, but you will not rid men's minds of him.     Topics: Books, Reasoning When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.     Topics: Books, Money Your library is your paradise.     Topics: Books Fools are without number.     Topics: Character, Foolishness Everyone knows that by far the happiest and universally enjoyable age of man is the first. What is there about babies which makes us hug and kiss and fondle them, so that even an enemy would give them help at that age?     Topics: Children, Age, Enemies He who allows oppression shares the crime.     Topics: Crime Fortune favors the audacious.     Topics: Finances Great abundance of riches cannot be gathered and kept by any man without sin. Great eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, or honor, cannot exist without sin.     Topics: Finances, Sin, Wealth 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.     Topics: Good and Evil, Discontentment, Envy A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.     Topics: Habits, Overcoming Don't give your advice before you are called upon.     Topics: Humility