Desiderius Erasmus Quotes

I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom; I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients.

The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.

Eloquence and wisdom are by no means the same thing. They are sometimes united, but not necessarily ; perhaps never when eloquence is the mere gift of nature rather than the slow result of nature and art conjoined. A ready supply of glittering language and an ardent conception, i. e. a fertile imagination, and quick feelings, united to a retentive memory—these are together quite sufficient to make an orator, but by no means to make a wise man; to make a speaker or even a leader in a popular assembly, but not necessarily a statesman.

If thy words are wise, they will not seem so to the foolish: if they are deep the shallow will not appreciate them. Think not highly of thyself, then, when thou art praised by many.

Fame often comes to those who are thinking about something else, whereas celebrity comes to those who think about nothing else. Celebrity is, if you like, a forgery of fame: it has the form but lacks the content.

A fine thought in fine language is a most precious jewel, and should not be hid away, but be exposed for use and ornament.

In art, and maybe just in general, the idea is to be able to be really comfortable with contradictory ideas. In other words, wisdom might be, seem to be, two contradictory ideas both expressed at their highest level and just let to sit in the same cage sort of, vibrating. So, I think as a writer, I'm really never sure of what I really believe.

There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think.

If only our great thinkers could learn to talk, and our great talkers could learn to think.

You listen to a politician making a speech, and it is like hearing nothing. Whereas, music is unmistakably music. The thing about music is that nobody listens to it unless it's real. I don't think that you can fool anybody for too long in music. And you certainly can't fool everybody.

Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait.

I think if you're going to make political art, you have to engage at some level. You can't just write about politics, you have to try and be politics as well.

Advertising and art are getting all mixed up. I think some of the most exciting pieces of TV are the commercials.

I don't think rock n' roll songwriters should worry about art. I don't think it comes into it...as far as I'm concerned, Art is just short for Arthur.

I think that there is always room for improvement so I am seeking to reach as far as I can in my field of art, film and animation.

Those giants of old, the ancient Rishis, who never walked but strode, of whom if you were to think but for a moment you would shrivel up into a moth, they sir, had time-and you have no time!

My focus is on music. I want to be able to see the world and meet fans everywhere. I think that's the priority for me and I literally couldn't be doing anything else.

As I drift back into sleep, I can't help thinking that it's a wonderful thing to be right about the world. To weigh the evidence, always incomplete, and correctly intuit the whole, to see the world in a grain of sand, to recognize its beauty, its simplicity, its truth. It's as close as we get to God in this life, and reside in the glow of such brief flashes of understanding, fully awake, sometimes for two or three seconds, at peace with our existence. And then back to sleep we go.

What I think is the universal, wonderful thing about music, is that it's very inclusive.

It's art that's taught me to think and to write.

I think an artist is anybody who does something well, like if you cook well.

I start a picture and I finish it. I don't think about art while I work. I try to think about life.

Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.

don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. I think most artists create art in order to explore, not to give the answers. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions.

The importance of the End of time is as ... a psychological event ... When you have seen the radiance of eternity through all the forms of time ... and it is the function of art to make that visible to you ... then you have really have ended life in the world as it is lived by those who only think only in the historical, concretizing terms. This is the function of mythology.