Érasme Quotes

“A su entender, la mayoría de conflictos entre personas y pueblos se podrían resolver pacíficamente si se encuentran en el ámbito humano. En realidad, casi cualquier disputa podría quedar dirimida si los instigadores y los exaltados no forzaran siempre más de la cuenta en las tensiones belicistas”.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“Power and expansion of power were for Machiavelli the supremest duty, and success the decisive justification of both prince and people.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“The only man then living who might have brought this miracle to pass was Erasmus, and Emperor Charles V, the ruler of two worlds, had sent him a special invitation to be present at the diet, conjuring him to give advice and to act as mediator. But Erasmus’s tragic destiny recapitulated itself. Again, as so often before, he missed a magnificent and unique opportunity because of overcautiousness, because of his innate weakness and his incapacity for coming to a definite conclusion.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“If Erasmus may be likened to the Girondists, then Luther may be compared with the Jacobins, and Thomas Münzer and his followers with the ultra-Jacobins such as Marat.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“But there was one man alive who refused to wait, an ardent and impatient warrior in the spirit’s cause, resolute in his determination to cut this Gordian knot. This doughty knight was named Ulrich von Hutten,”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“Erasmus and Basle, have become inseparable: one cannot nowadays think of Erasmus without calling up the vision of Basle, or of Basle without picturing Erasmus.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“Courage, as I have said before, was not one of Erasmus’s virtues; he chose, therefore, to flee the city rather than to fight the issue.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“There are epochs wherein neutrality is stigmatized as a crime; during times of extreme political excitement the world insists upon a clear Yes or No, an affirmation of support or of disapproval, a distinct declaration of “I am for Luther or I am for the pope.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“Of all the men of genius who have lived upon this earth, Luther was, perhaps, the most fanatical, the most unteachable, the most intractable, and the most quarrelsome. He could only tolerate those who were completely acquiescent with his views, so that he could make what use he would of them; those who said him nay served him as targets for his wrath, and provided him with material to grind to powder with his scorn.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“When animals fall upon one another,” he writes, “I can understand and forgive, for they act in ignorance. But men should not need to be told that war is of necessity unjustifiable since, as a rule, it harms not so much those who prepare for it and who carry it on; for usually the full burden of it falls upon innocent parties, upon the unhappy masses, who gain nothing either from victory or from defeat.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“It should be replaced by the European, the supranational ideal. “The entire world is one common fatherland,” declared Erasmus in his Querela pacis (Complaint of Peace), and from this commanding position he looked down upon the senseless quarrels between the nations, the hatred between English, Germans, and French, to exclaim: “Why do such foolish names still exist to keep us sundered, since we are united in the name of Christ?”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“antibarbarus,” as the fighter against all forms of backwardness and traditionalism, as harbinger of a higher, freer, more humane community of mankind, as the guide into the coming citizenship of the world, he took his place at the head of the marching column.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“He knew practically nothing save book-lore, possessing neither an eye for paintings nor an ear for music.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“He recognized but two strata of society, an upper, consisting of the aristocracy of the mind, and a lower, plebeian, barbaric stratum which comprehended the remainder of mankind.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“History, however, is invariably unjust to the vanquished; she does not appreciate men of moderation, men who play the role of mediators, men who act as reconcilers, in a word, humane men. She loves men of passion, the immoderate, the adventurers in the realms of deed and of thought.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“His only master had always been fair-mindedness,”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam

“El erasmista, el que cree en la humanidad, tiene que fomentar en su círculo vital más próximo la unión y no la división, no puede reforzar lo parcial en su parcialidad ni lo hostil en su”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmo de Rotterdam: Triunfo y tragedia de un humanista

“Hábeis e frios calculadores podem vir demonstrar, ainda e sempre, que o sonho do erasmismo é impossível, e os factos poderão parecer dar-lhes razão; isso nao impede que sejam sempre necessários os seres que indicam aos povos aquilo que os aproxima e aquilo que os divide, e que renovam no coração dod homens a crença em mais alta humanidade. Há no legado de Erasmo uma promessa criadora. Aquele que mostra o espírito fora do seu quadro, nas dimensões da Humanidade, dá ao indivíduo uma forma sobre-humana; só as reivindicações ultrapessoais e que parecerem quase irrealizáveis, dão aos homens e aos povos a consciência da sua verdadeira medida.”
― Stefan Zweig, Erasmus von Rotterdam: Triumph und Tragik