The entire world is my temple, and a very fine one too, if I'm not mistaken, and I'll never lack priests to serve it as long as there are men.
Desiderius ErasmusRead
Man is to man either a god or a wolf.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that humans can exhibit both divine qualities and brutal instincts toward one another.
Desiderius Erasmus's quote delves into the dual nature of humanity, implying that we have the capacity for both benevolence and cruelty. Just as a god symbolizes the highest ideals of kindness, compassion, and support, a wolf represents instinctual savagery and self-serving behavior. This dichotomy suggests that our treatment of each other oscillates between these two extremes, reflecting the complexities of human relationships and morality.
In practice
In a discussion on ethics, one might cite this quote to illustrate the complexities of human interactions.
The entire world is my temple, and a very fine one too, if I'm not mistaken, and I'll never lack priests to serve it as long as there are men.
When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.
You'll see certain Pythagorean whose belief in communism of property goes to such lengths that they pick up anything lying about unguarded, and make off with it without a qualm of conscience as if it had come to them by law.
[N]o party is any fun unless seasoned with folly.
If you look at history you'll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.
Fortune favours the audacious.
The cleverer I am at miniaturizing the world, the better I possess it.
Remember that your perception of the world is a reflection of your state of consciousness. You are not separate from it, and there is no objective world out there. Every moment, _x000D_ your consciousness creates the world that you inhabit.
Faith is a light of such supreme brilliance that it dazzles the mind and darkens all its visions of other realities, but in the end when we become used to the new light, we gain a new view of all reality transfigured and elevated in the light itself.
We cannot do justice to the deeds of former times if we do not in some degree remove ourselves from the circumstances in which we stand and substitute those by which the real actors were surrounded.
For what human ill does dawn not seem to be alternative?
Man's sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.
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