Quotation
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“For they are quite beside the mark that place the happiness of men in things themselves, since it only depends upon opinion.”
Erasmus · Christian humanism · Renaissance · 1511
What does it mean?
The usual reading, remembering who is talking, hears Folly arguing that happiness tracks what people think about their lot, not the lot itself, which lets her praise delusion as a social glue. A competing reading lifts the sentence out and files it as Erasmus's own settled philosophy of subjectivity, which flattens a speech designed to be too clever. It sits in the middle of the oration, where Folly is collecting proofs that she runs human life. The Praise is a satire in Folly's mouth. Agreement with her is always partly a trap.
Did Erasmus really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. John Wilson's English (1668) of Moriae encomium. Folly is the speaker, in a mock oration Erasmus wrote in Latin. The claim is hers inside the satire, not a sober sentence from a textbook.
Where it comes from
The Praise of Folly (1511), in John Wilson's translation
Approximate date: 1511.
How to use it
Two households in Liverpool on the same street can describe the same income as comfort or as failure, and Folly would say the description is doing the living. The sentence is not advice to think rich. Inside the book it is a joke with a point: a great deal of misery is a theory about what should have happened. You can still fix the damp. She is talking about the part that is the commentary.
A mindset reading
Ask who benefits from the claim that only opinion matters. Folly benefits, because if opinion is everything, her flatteries are as good as reforms. The habit is to enjoy the insight and then refuse the absolutism. Things still leak, and opinion still stings. A satire can tell the truth and oversell it in the same line.
Understand the philosophy
Erasmus has Folly praise herself in a Latin declamation dedicated, in a backhanded way, to Thomas More. The key device is the unreliable speaker: many attacks on theologians and princes are Erasmus's, and many defences of illusion are traps. This sentence belongs to the second group, cousin to the Stoic talk of indifferents but played for laughs. Reading it as a straight thesis misses the genre. The Wilson translation is the older English, wordier than modern ones.
- happiness
- mind
- knowledge
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading, remembering who is talking, hears Folly arguing that happiness tracks what people think about their lot, not the lot itself, which lets her praise delusion as a social glue. A competing reading lifts the sentence out and files it as Erasmus's own settled philosophy of subjectivity, which flattens a speech designed to be too clever. It sits in the middle of the oration, where Folly is collecting proofs that she runs human life. The Praise is a satire in Folly's mouth. Agreement with her is always partly a trap.
Did Erasmus really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. John Wilson's English (1668) of Moriae encomium. Folly is the speaker, in a mock oration Erasmus wrote in Latin. The claim is hers inside the satire, not a sober sentence from a textbook.
Which work is it in?
The Praise of Folly (1511), in John Wilson's translation Approximate date: 1511.