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Only by the good influence of our conduct may we bring salvation in human affairs; or like a fatal comet we may bring destruction in our train.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Ability
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The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Actors, Acting
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If a person were to try stripping the disguises from actors while they play a scene upon stage, showing to the audience their real looks and the faces they were born with, would not such a one spoil the whole play ? And would not the spectators think he deserved to be driven out of the theatre with brickbats, as a drunken disturber ?... 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 one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage ? Moreover, this manager frequently bids the same actor to go back in a different costume, so that he who has but lately played the king in scarlet now acts the flunkey in patched clothes. Thus all things are presented by shadows.
-Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly
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Age
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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.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Baby, Babies
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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
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Books
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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.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Christianity
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By a Carpenter mankind was made, and only by that Carpenter can mankind be remade.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Communism
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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.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Criticism
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Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Deception/Lying
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Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Doctors
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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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Enthusiasm
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Great eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, or honor, cannot exist without sin.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Evil
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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.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Fame
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What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Fools, Foolishness
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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.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can't long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Fools are without number.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Genius
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Everybody hates a prodigy, detests an old head on young shoulders.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Grief, Grieving
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Time takes away the grief of men.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Habits
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A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Happiness
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It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Humanity
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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.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Hunting
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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.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Illusion
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What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don't know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Insanity
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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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Intelligence
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Ask a wise man to dinner and he'll upset everyone by his gloomy silence or tiresome questions. Invite him to a dance and you'll have a camel prancing about. Haul him off to a public entertainment and his face will be enough to spoil the people's entertainment.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Law
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Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Learning
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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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Libraries
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Your library is your paradise.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Light
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Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Medicine
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Prevention is better than cure.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Parties
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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.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Passion
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Jupiter, not wanting man's life to be wholly gloomy and grim, has bestowed far more passion than reason --you could reckon the ration as twenty-four to one. Moreover, he confined reason to a cramped corner of the head and left all the rest of the body to the passions.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Perception
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In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
-Desiderius Erasmus, Adages
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Pessimism
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It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn't have it, to fear and suspect the worst.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Philosophy
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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.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Politics
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Nothing is so foolish, they say, as for a man to stand for office and woo the crowd to win its vote, buy its support with presents, court the applause of all those fools and feel self-satisfied when they cry their approval, and then in his hour of triumph to be carried round like an effigy for the public to stare at, and end up cast in bronze to stand in the market place.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Prayer
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Heaven grant that the burden you carry may have as easy an exit as it had an entrance. Prayer To A Pregnant Woman
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Reading
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When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Religion
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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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For them it's out-of-date and outmoded to perform miracles; teaching the people is too like hard work, interpreting the holy scriptures is for schoolmen and praying is a waste of time; to shed tears is weak and womanish, to be needy is degrading; to suffer defeat is a disgrace and hardly fitting for one who scarcely permits the greatest of kings to kiss the toes of his sacred feet; and finally, death is an unattractive prospect, and dying on a cross would be an ignominious end.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Royalty, Kings, Queens
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Picture the prince, such as most of them are today: a man ignorant of the law, well-nigh an enemy to his people's advantage, while intent on his personal convenience, a dedicated voluptuary, a hater of learning, freedom and truth, without a thought for the interests of his country, and measuring everything in terms of his own profit and desires.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Scholars, Scholarship
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People who use their erudition to write for a learned minority... don't seem to me favored by fortune but rather to be pitied for their continuous self-torture. They add, change, remove, lay aside, take up, rephrase, show to their friends, keep for nine years and are never satisfied. And their futile reward, a word of praise from a handful of people, they win at such a cost -- so many late nights, such loss of sleep, sweetest of all things, and so much sweat and anguish... their health deteriorates, their looks are destroyed, they suffer partial or total blindness, poverty, ill-will, denial of pleasure, premature old age and early death.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Talent
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No one respects a talent that is concealed.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Concealed talent brings no reputation.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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War
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War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Wealth
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Great abundance of riches cannot be gathered and kept by any man without sin.
-Desiderius Erasmus
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Books by and about Desiderius Erasmus
