Top 100 Desiderius Erasmus Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Prevention is better than cure.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

Featured in: Care Quotes, Wellness Quotes, Common Sense Quotes, Intelligent Quotes, Short Deep Quotes

2. “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

Featured in: Values Quotes

3. “Your library is your paradise.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

Featured in: Library Quotes

4. “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

5. “The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

Featured in: Encouraging Quotes for Students, School Quotes, Quotes About Kids

6. “Bidden or unbidden, God is present.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

7. “Eagles don’t catch flies.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

8. “Fortune favors the audacious.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

9. “No one respects a talent that is concealed.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

Featured in: Genius Quotes

10. “The desire to write grows with writing.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

11. “I am a citizen of the world, known to all and to all a stranger.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

13. “War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

14. “He who allows oppression shares the crime.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

16. “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

17. “A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

18. “Read first the best books. The important thing for you is not how much you know, but the quality of what you know.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

19. “There is no joy in possession without sharing.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

20. “Dulce bellum inexpertis. – War is lovely for those who know nothing about it.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

21. “He who doesn’t sin, is the greatest sinner of all.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

23. “Frugality is a handsome income.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

24. “War is sweet to those who haven’t tasted it. Dulce bellum inexpertis.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

26. “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

27. “A good prince will tax as lightly as possible those commodities which are used by the poorest members of society: grain, bread, beer, wine, clothing, and all other staples without which human life could not exist.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

28. “The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

29. “By a Carpenter mankind was made, and only by that Carpenter can mankind be remade.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

30. “Modern church music is so constructed that the congregation cannot hear one distinct word.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

31. “To know nothing is the happiest life.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

32. “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

33. “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

34. “Before you sleep, read something that is exquisite, and worth remembering.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

36. “Do not be guilty of possessing a library of learned books while lacking learning yourself.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

37. “At last concluded that no creature was more miserable than man, for that all other creatures are content with those bounds that nature set them, only man endeavors to exceed them.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

38. “It seems to me to be the best proof of an evangelical disposition, that persons are not angry when reproached, and have a Christian charity for those that ill deserve it.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

39. “No Man is wise at all Times, or is without his blind Side.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

40. “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

41. “Concealed talent brings no reputation.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

42. “Wherever you encounter truth, look upon it as Christianity.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

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

— Desiderius Erasmus

44. “They may attack me with an army of six hundred syllogisms; and if I do not recant, they will proclaim me a heretic.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

45. “Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

46. “There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

47. “Many times what cannot be refuted by arguments can be parried by laughter.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

48. “It is a greater advantage to be honestly educated than honorably born.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

49. “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

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

— Desiderius Erasmus