Tao Te Ching
Erasmus
(Desiderius Roterodamus)
1466 – 1536 CE
"Greatest scholar of the northern Renaissance"
"Prince of the Humanists,” famous translator, globalist and true citizen of the world; Erasmus emphasized a middle way approach between Luther and the Pope during the Reformation angering both sides. Not many know much about about him but his legacy is well known in the sayings and phrases he compiled and popularized. Some of his sayings like “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,” “God helps those who help themselves,” “Don’t put the cart before the horse,” “Leave no stone unturned,” “In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king,” “No sooner said then done,” “Between a rock and a hard place,” “Call a spade a spade,” “Women – can’t live with them or without them,” “Like father like son,” “To look a gift horse in the mouth,” “To break the ice,” “To cut to the quick,” “One step at a time,” “A necessary evil,” “What’s done cannot be undone,” “Up to his eyeballs,” “To sleep on it,” have not only entered into common conversation; but also, become a powerful influence on Western culture.
Eras
Western
Renaissance (1304 – 1576 CE)Chinese
Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644 CE)Sources
Unlisted Sources
Quotes by Erasmus (19 quotes)
“Bidden or Unbidden, God is Present.”
Chapters:
47. Effortless Success
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“Humility is truth.”
Chapters:
67. Three Treasures
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“When I get a little money, I buy books; if any is left, I buy food and clothes.”
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“That you are patriotic will be praised by many and easily forgiven by everyone; but it is wiser to treat men and things as though we held this world as the common fatherland of all.”
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“Nobody is further from true wisdom than those people with their grand titles, learned bonnets, splendid sashes and bejeweled rings, who profess to be wisdom’s peak”
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“Women – can’t live with them or without them.”
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“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”
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“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”
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“War is delightful — to those who have had no experience of it.”
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“The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is.”
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“Folly is the only thing that keeps youth at a stay and old age afar off.”
from Praise of Folly
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“What benefit is beauty, the greatest blessing of heaven, if it be mixed with affectation?”
from Praise of Folly
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“What benefit is youth, if corrupted with the severity of old age?”
from Praise of Folly
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“And what is all this life but a kind of comedy, wherein men walk up and down in one another's disguises and act their respective parts… Thus are all things represented by counterfeit, and yet without this there is no living.”
from Praise of Folly
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“Almost all Christians being wretchedly enslaved to blindness and ignorance, which the priests are so far from preventing or removing, blacken the darkness and promote the delusion.”
from Praise of Folly
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“Holy Socrates, pray for us.”
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“Merchants are the biggest fools of all—they will lie, perjure themselves, steal, cheat, and mislead the public. Nevertheless they are highly respected because of their money.”
from Praise of Folly
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“[a man] whose soul was more pure than any snow.”
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Quotes about Erasmus (2 quotes)
“A witty, skilled, and highly skilled writer... Erasmus was incurably and unashamedly literary... he lived too long, into an age of new virtues and new vices—heroism and intolerance—neither of which he could acquire.”
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“No other contemporary writer equaled his fame... One Oxford bookseller reported in 1520 that a third of all his sales were of works by Erasmus... In the field of literature, he was the Renaissance and humanism embodied”
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