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| Desiderius Erasmus
A nail is driven out by another nail, habit is overcome by habit. An angelic boyhood becomes a Satanic old age. Between the victim and the stone knife. Betwixt the devil and the deep sea. By a Carpenter mankind was made, and only by that Carpenter can mankind be remade. Classes and masses. Concealed talent brings no reputation. Don't give your advice before you are called upon. Everybody hates a prodigy, detests an old head on young shoulders. 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? Fools are without number. 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 spirit. Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself. 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. He touches nothing but he adds a charm. He who allows oppression shares the crime. Heaven grant that the burden you carry may have as easy an exit as it had an entrance. I don't like your way of conditioning and contracting with the saints. Do this and I'll do that! Here's one for t'other. Save me and I'll give you a taper or go on a pilgrimage. 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. If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don't do it, and it won't happen. 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. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Latin:In regione caecorum rex est luscus. It is a good part of sagacity to have known the foolish desires of the crowd and their unreasonable notions. It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is. It is the worst of madness to learn what has to be unlearnt. It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn't have it, to fear and suspect the worst. It's the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide. Julian would learn something even if he had one foot in the grave. Luther was guilty of two great crimes – he struck the Pope in his crown, and the monks in their belly. Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth. 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. No one respects a talent that is concealed. Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another. Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn't – it's human. Of two evils choose the least. Prevention is better than cure. Procrastination brings loss, delay danger. Reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance; but revelry is the same flower, when rank and running to seed. The better part of happiness is to wish to be what you are. The camel set out to get him horns and was shorn of his ears. 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. The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all. The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes. The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war. The nearer people approach old age the closer they return to a semblance of childhood, until the time comes for them to depart this life, again like children, neither tired of living nor aware of death. The pleasures which we most rarely experience give us the greatest delight. 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. They take unbelievable pleasure in the hideous blast of the hunting horn and baying of the hounds. Dogs' dung smells sweet as cinnamon to them. Time takes away the grief of men. War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it. We call a fig a fig, and a skiff a skiff. We sow our thoughts, and we reap our actions; we sow our actions, and we reap our habits; we sow our habits, and we reap our characters; we sow our characters, and we reap our destiny. What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism. When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes. 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. Women, can't live with them, can't live without them. You'll see certain Pythagorean whose belief in communism of property goes to such lengths that they pick up anything lying about unguarded, and make off with it without a qualm of conscience as if it had come to them by law. Your library is your paradise. |
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