Praise of Folly; The Essays
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The makers of Encyclopædia Britannica bring you one of the Great Books of the Western World. This text captures major ideas, stories, and discoveries that helped shape Western culture.
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“The only good histories are those that have been written by the very men who were in command in the affairs, or who were participants in the conduct of them, Cor who at least have had the fortune to conduct others of the same sort. ASuch are almost all the Greek and Roman histories. For when several eyewitnesses have written about the same subject (as it happened in those days that greatness and learning usually met), if there is a mistake, it must be very slight, and on a very doubtful incident.” (Page 240)
“I do not do so, however, and in that respect I surpass all historical fidelity, being scrupulous to the point of superstition. In the examples that I bring in here of what I have heard, done, or said, I have forbidden myself to dare to alter even the slightest and most inconsequential circumstances. My conscience does not falsify one iota; my knowledge, I don’t know.” (Page 96)
“The historians come right to my forehand. They are pleasant and easy; and at the same time, Cman in general, the knowledge of whom I seek, appears in them more alive and entire than in any other place—the diversity and truth of his inner qualities in the mass and in detail, the variety of the ways he is put together, and the accidents that threaten him.” (Page 239)
“We must not judge what is possible and what is not, according to what is credible and incredible to our sense, as I have said elsewhere;1 and it is a great error, and yet one into which most men fall C(which I am not saying for Bodin), Ato balk at believing about others what they themselves could not do—Cor would not.” (Page 390)
- Title: Praise of Folly; The Essays
- Authors: Desiderius Erasmus, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
- Edition: Second Edition
- Series: Great Books of the Western World
- Volume: 23
- Publishers: Encyclopedia Britannica, Robert P. Gwinn
- Print Publication Date: 1990
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Folly › Religious aspects--Christianity; Humanists
- ISBNs: 0852295316, 9780852295311
- Resource ID: LLS:GBWW23
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:11:18Z