Desiderius Erasmus

Man is to man either a god or a wolf.

War is sweet to those who have not experienced it.

By burning Luther's books you may rid your bookshelves of him, but you will not rid men's minds of him.

To know nothing is the happiest life.

Fortune favors the audacious.

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

Concealed talent brings no reputation.

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.

It's the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide.

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.

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.

No one respects a talent that is concealed.

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.

Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another.

Luther was guilty of two great crimes - he struck the Pope in his crown, and the monks in their belly.

Everybody hates a prodigy, detests an old head on young shoulders.

Time takes away the grief of men.

Humility is truth.

It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn't have it, to fear and suspect the worst.

Your library is your paradise.

As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea's foot and marveling at a midge's humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life.

Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known.

Fools are without number.

Do not get excited over the noise you have made

Nowadays the rage for possession has got to such a pitch that there is nothing in the realm of nature, whether sacred or profane, out of which profit cannot be squeezed.