Desiderius Erasmus Quotes
Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.
Desiderius Erasmus, c. 1466-1536, Dutch Scholar & Theologian, Praise of Folly, 1509
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
See {115604} for a similar sentiment from England.
One classic example was the fact that in 2012 about one third of Republicans believed that President Obama was a Muslim when he was a devout Christian. The infamous lie had 3 grains of truth: Obama’s father was a Muslim. his middle name was an Islamic name. and he had lived and gone to school as a young boy in Indonesia, the largest Islamic country.
The Presidential Campaigns of 2008 and 2012 shocked many Americans for the blatant lies that opponents of President Obama wrote and broadcast and then some of the retaliatory lies that Obama defenders responded with. However, this quotation from a 19th century political historian shows us that blatant lying in American politics is not at all new.
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus was a Dutch philosopher and Christian scholar who is widely considered to have been one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance. As a Catholic priest, Erasmus was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists". Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote On Free Will, In Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works.
