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?”

“Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.”

“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.”

“War is sweet to those who have not experienced it.”

“Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.”

“Concealed talent brings no reputation.”

“Don't give your advice before you are called upon.”

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

“Man is to man either a god or a wolf.”

“It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.”

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

“A good portion of speaking will consist in knowing how to lie.”

“No one respects a talent that is concealed.”

“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”

“To know nothing is the happiest life.”

“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.”

“The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.”

“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.”

“Humility is truth.”