A good portion of speaking will consist in knowing how to lie.
Desiderius Erasmus

A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.
Desiderius Erasmus

By a Carpenter mankind was made, and only by that Carpenter can mankind be remade.
Desiderius Erasmus

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

Concealed talent brings no reputation.
Desiderius Erasmus

Don't give your advice before you are called upon.
Desiderius Erasmus

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

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?
Desiderius Erasmus

Fools are without number.
Desiderius Erasmus

Fortune favors the audacious.
Desiderius Erasmus


Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.
Desiderius Erasmus

Great abundance of riches cannot be gathered and kept by any man without sin.
Desiderius Erasmus

Great eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, or honor, cannot exist without sin.
Desiderius Erasmus

He who allows oppression shares the crime.
Desiderius Erasmus

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

Humility is truth.
Desiderius Erasmus

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

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.
Desiderius Erasmus

In the country of the blind the one eyed man is king.
Desiderius Erasmus

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Desiderius Erasmus