Senesco semper multa addiscens

('The older I get, the more I learn')

Erasmus was of great importance for the development and dissemination of humanism. He is also called 'the prince of humanists'. Humanism originated in the 12th century at the universities of France and Italy. Scholars became increasingly interested in the writings of classical antiquity.

Erasmus wrote about how people should live and interact, about war and peace. He himself was against war and violence, but he thought that you could use violence to defend yourself. Education was important for Erasmus to learn to interact with each other in a humane way, without having to agree with everyone. But in your reaction you should take into account other people's feelings and rights. In addition, people were not just allowed to adopt the ideas of others, but they had to think for themselves. For example, people had to look for the original evangelical sources instead of simply accepting what the Catholic Church wrote or said. Because of the many translations and copying, various errors had crept into the texts over the centuries, which, according to Erasmus, led to abuses. Erasmus, like the other humanists, hated this. That is why he thought it was so important to set up a three-language lecture, where interested people learned Latin, Greek and Hebrew, which were the languages of the source texts.

Despite his criticism of the Catholic Church, Erasmus was a religious man. He dreamed of an empire where only the Catholic faith reigned and where everyone spoke Latin.