Skip to content

Ask a wise man to dinner and he'll upset everyone by his gloomy silence or tiresome questions. Invite him to a dance and you'll have a camel prancing about. Haul him off to a public entertainment and his face will be enough to spoil the people's entertainment.

Another quote →

Topics

Intelligence

More quotes by Erasmus

Do not be guilty of possessing a library of learned books while lacking learning yourself.

Letter to Christian Northoff (1497)

I am a citizen of the world, known to all and to all a stranger.

Erasmus (1970)

In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

A speech comes alive only if it rises from the heart, not if it floats on the lips.

Ciceronianus (1528)

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

Adagia (1508)

All Erasmus quotes →

You may also like

Each of these private teachers who work for pay ... inculcates nothing else than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom.

Socrates

Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël De l’Allemagne [Germany (1813)

Like every 'intellectual', a philosophy teacher is a petty bourgeois. When he opens his mouth, it is petty-bourgeois ideology that speaks: its resources and ruses are infinite.

Louis Althusser Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Erasmus (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.