Desiderius Erasmus

“ If monasteries had their rise from such beginnings as these, what danger are not only popes, but kings themselves in? It is a pious thing to glory in the conversion of a neighbour to piety; but to seek for glory in a dress or diet, is pharisaical. To supply the want of a neighbour, is a part of piety; to take care that the liberality of good men be not converted to luxury, is discipline; but to drive a brother into distempers, madness, and death, is cruelty, is murdering him. The intention of murder may, indeed, be wanting, but murder it is. ”

“ For, in old time, both bishops and canons were monks, as appears by the manifest vestigia of things.
But the church that is dedicated to St. Thomas raises itself up to wards heaven with that majesty that it strikes those that behold it at a great distance with an awe of religion, and now with its splendour makes the light of the neighbouring palaces look dim, and as it were obscures the place that was anciently the most celebrated for religion. ”

“ I respect you, and thank you that you made my affair your care. You have obliged me very much by that kind ness of yours. It is a great obligation upon me that you have managed my concern with fidelity. Of all your kindnesses, which are indeed a great many, you have shewed me, none has obliged me more than this. I cannot possibly make you a return according to your merit. Too much ceremony between you and I is unnecessary, but that which is in my power I will do. I will be thankful as long as I live. I confess myself highly obliged to you for your good service. ”

“ My brother, some evil spirit has set this war on foot between you and me; nor do we fight for our lives, but our dominions. You, as to your part, have behaved yourself as a stout and valiant warrior; but fortune has been on my side, and of a king made you a captive. What has been your lot may be mine, and your mishap admonishes all of our human condition. We have experienced that this way of contention has been detrimental to both of us; let us engage one another after a different manner. ”

“ A Christian is tied up in many points, and to harder circumstances, and liable to a greater punishment. But to make amends for this, the greater strength of faith and love that is added makes those things pleasant which by nature are burdensome. Bu. Pray, tell me why, when the Holy Spirit descended from heaven of old, in the shape of fiery tongues, and enriched the hearts of believers with a more copious gift of faitli and charity, why was the burden of the law taken away from them, as from persons weak, and in danger, under an unequal yoke? ”

“ I am glad here is something found out at last, that a Fishmonger and Butcher can agree in. But to begin to talk seriously, as perhaps it would be convenient for Christians not to be ty’d up to so many Ceremonies, especially to such as make but very little to true Religion, not to say that make against it; so I have no Mind to vindicate those Persons, who reject and set light by all human Ordinances; nay, such as often do many Things, because they are forbid to do them. Yet I can’t but admire at the absurd Notions of Mankind in many Things. ”

“ And when nature is busied to purge the body from unwholesome juices and make it fresh and blooming with new, you throw into it more stinks and corruption; so that if there be any vicious humours in the body you increase them, adding worse to bad, and not only so, but corrupting the good juices of the body. But this might be borne with too if you only injured the body; but inasmuch as by different foods the organs of the mind are vitiated, you vitiate the very minds themselves. So that do but mind your fish-eaters, how like fishes do they look, pale, stinking, stupid, and mute? ”

“ Since so many of you are assembled here to-day, and in so good humour, for the good and happiness of this convention, and the whole commonwealth of women, it gives me the greatest hope that every one's good genius will suggest to her those things that concern the dignity and advantage of the whole sex. I believe you all know what a prejudice it has been to our affairs, that while the men have had their daily meetings for transacting their affairs, we have been sitting at our spinning-wheels and neglected the management of our own cause. ”

“ Is it to be thought, that young men can tell better what is good for them, than men of learning, experience, and age? A man might thus excuse himself to a wolf, that had drawn him into a trap, when he was almost famished with hunger. But can he that sets unwholesome and poisonous food before a man that is ready to gnaw his flesh for hunger, so excuse himself to him when he is perishing, by saying, no body forc’d you to eat it, you devour’d what was set before you willingly and eagerly? ”

“ Now-a-days there is no prosperity so great, that any one fears the invidiousness of fortune; but is so puffed up if any good luck happens to him, as if Nemesis were either dead, or at least deaf. Well, if you like this dinner, this garden shall entertain you as often as you will, since you have consecrated it with this conversation that is no less pleasant than profitable. ”

“ And if any one shall cry out that it is an unseemly thing for an old man to sport himself thus childishly, I care not how childishly it be, so it be but profitably. And if the ancient teachers of children are commended who allured them with wafers, that they might be willing to learn their first rudiments, I think it ought not to be charged as a fault upon me, that by the like regard I allure youths either to the elegancy of the Latin tongue or to piety. And besides, it is a good part of prudence to know the foolish affections of the common people and their absurd opinions. ”

“ He to whom this affront was offered was a king, and a worthy one too; but for all that he did not fall into a passion, but only turning to the ambassador's retinue, said, Do you report this to the people of Athens, and then let them judge which has the greater soul of the two, I who heard this patiently or he who spoke it saucily. Where are now our monarchs who think themselves equal to the gods themselves, and for a single word spoken over a glass of wine will immediately wage war? The thirst of glory is very impetuous, and many are carried away by the violence of it. ”

“ As for you, if there is any truth in a poem, you obscure it so with trifling words, that it rather makes it look dim, than gives it a lustre. On the contrary, we (not as you reproachfully say) do not corrupt the truth by an elegancy of words ; but we put a lustre upon it, as when a jewel is set in gold. We do not take the lustre from it, but add to it ; we do not make it more dark, but shine the brighter. And last of all, this we do, we labour that that truth, which is of its own nature profitable, be made more grateful by industry. ”

“ Neither is the law abrogated, but it is but requisite that that part of it should give way which was not essential. Leaves and flowers bespeak fruit coming; and when a tree is loaded with that nobody covets the leaves. Nor is anybody sorry that his son’s puerility is gone when maturity of age is come. Nor does anybody call for candles and torches when the sun is got above the horizon. Nor does a schoolmaster complain if a son, being come to man’s estate, puts in his claim for freedom, and in his turn has the master under his tuition. ”

“ No Man can serve two Masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other: You cannot serve God and Mammon. Therefore, I say unto you, take no thought for your Life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink: Nor yet for your Body, what you shall put on. Is not the Life more than Meat, and the Body than Raiment? ”

“ Good servants rise as soon as it is day, and take care to get everything in order before their master rises. How loth this drone is to leave his warm nest! He is a whole hour scratching, and stretching, and yawning. ”

“ In my opinion Gratian was not angry altogether without a cause. If these shoes and slippers were preserved as an argument of moderation in living I should not dislike it, but I think it a piece of impudence to thrust slippers, and shoes, and stockings upon any one to be kissed. If any one shall do it of their own free choice, from a great affection to piety, I think they deserve to be left to their own liberty. ”

“ If at any Time my Husband seem'd to be melancholy, and did not much care for talking, I did not laugh, and put on a gay Humour, as some Women are us'd to do; but I put on a grave demure Countenance, as well as he. For as a Looking-glass, if it be a true one, represents the Face of the Person that looks into it, so a Wife ought to frame herself to the Temper of her Husband, not to be chearful when he is melancholy, nor be merry when he is in a Passion. ”

“ Altho' indeed she is scarce Half a Mother that refuses to feed what she has brought into the World. The nourishing of the tender Babe is the best Part of Geniture: For he is not only fed by the Milk, but with the Fragrancy of the Body of the Mother. He requires the same natural, familiar, accustomed Moisture, that he drew in when in her Body, and by which he received his Coalition. And I am of that Opinion, that the Genius of Children are vitiated by the Nature of the Milk they suck, as the Juices of the Earth change the Nature of those Plants and Fruits that it feeds. ”

“ Let all past animosities be forgotten, you are at free liberty to return into your own dominions, enjoy what is your own, be a good neighbour, and for the future let this be the only contention, which shall outdo the other in offices of fidelity and friendship; nor let us vie one with another which shall govern the largest dominions, but who shall govern his own with the greatest justice and goodness. ”

“ Never to be guilty of doing a good action, to go fine, wear a diamond ring, whore stoutly, game continually, spend his life in drinking and diversion, speak of nothing that is mean, be continually cracking of castles, duels, battles, and everything that looks great. They take the liberty of quarrelling with whom they have a mind, although they have not a foot of land of their own to set their feet upon. Be. Such knights as these deserve to be mounted upon, the wooden horse. But there are a great many such knights in, Gelderland. ”

“ Just as if we had been stunned with a cudgel, or struck with thunder; we sneaked away, humbly begging his pardon for our boldness; for so a man ought to do in holy matters. Thence we went to the little chapel, the dwelling of the Virgin Saint. In our way thither an expounder of sacred things, one of the minors, offers himself; he stares upon us as if he had a mind to draw our pictures ”