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...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.

Desiderius Erasmus

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Desiderius Erasmus
Age: 69 †
Born: 1466
Born: November 6
Died: 1536
Died: July 12
Bible Translator
Essayist
Latinist
Philosopher
Priest
Teacher
Theologian
Translator
University Teacher
R'dam
Erasmus of Rotterdam
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus
Erasmus Von Rotterdam Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam
Erasmus von Rotterdam
Erasmus Rotterdam
Cowardice
Piece
Works
Afraid
Pieces
Feigned
Brain
Sneaking
Names
Bastards
Like
Authors

More quotes by Desiderius Erasmus

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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.
Desiderius Erasmus
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I put up with this church, in the hope that one day it will become better, just as it is constrained to put up with me in the hope that I will become better.
Desiderius Erasmus
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The desire to write grows with writing.
Desiderius Erasmus
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In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Desiderius Erasmus
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It's the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide.
Desiderius Erasmus
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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.
Desiderius Erasmus
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Now what else is the whole life of mortals, but a sort of comedy in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each ones part until the manager walks them off the stage?
Desiderius Erasmus
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Prevention is better than cure.
Desiderius Erasmus
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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.
Desiderius Erasmus
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The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes.
Desiderius Erasmus
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War is delightful for those who don't know it
Desiderius Erasmus
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Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another.
Desiderius Erasmus
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It is folly alone that stays the fugue of Youth and beats off touring Old Age.
Desiderius Erasmus
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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.
Desiderius Erasmus
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You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn.
Desiderius Erasmus
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This type of man who is devoted to the study of wisdom is always most unlucky in everything, and particularly when it comes to procreating children I imagine this is because Nature wants to ensure that the evils of wisdom shall not spread further throughout mankind.
Desiderius Erasmus
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Besides, it happens (how, I cannot tell) that an idea launched like a javelin in proverbial form strikes with sharper point on the hearer's mind and leaves implanted barbs for meditation.
Desiderius Erasmus
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By identifying the new learning with heresy, you make orthodoxy synonymous with ignorance.
Desiderius Erasmus
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Out of all those centuries the Greeks can count seven sages at the most, and if anyone looks at them more closely I swear he'll not find so much as a half-wise man or even a third of a wise man among them.
Desiderius Erasmus
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Christians would show sense if they dispatched these argumentative Scotists and pigheaded Ockhamists and undefeated Albertists along with the whole regiment of Sophists to fight the Turks and Saracens instead of sending those armies of dull-witted soldiers with whom they've long been carrying on war with no result.
Desiderius Erasmus