Life & Mortality Quote by Desiderius Erasmus

Erasmus compresses a whole Christian-humanist program into a single, quiet sentence: grief is real, but it is not sovereign. “Time” isn’t romanticized as a healer with a warm bedside manner; it’s cast as an impersonal force that erodes even our most intimate suffering. That choice matters. By outsourcing consolation to time rather than to passion, revenge, or spectacle, Erasmus nudges the reader toward moderation - the virtue his era badly needed amid Reformation-era volatility, plague, and recurring war. Grief becomes something you endure, not something you perform.

The subtext is almost tactical. If sorrow naturally wanes, then rash vows made in mourning are suspect. Public hysteria, vendettas, and doctrinal fury can be reframed as temporary weather rather than permanent truth. Time, here, is a moral solvent: it dissolves the illusions grief loves to sell us, especially the illusion that pain grants instant clarity or license.

There’s also a subtle rebalancing of agency. “Takes away” implies loss, but also relief; you don’t conquer grief through heroic willpower, you outlast it. That’s a bracing message from a philosopher often associated with civility and satire: the world doesn’t stop for your suffering, and that fact can be cruel - or freeing. Read against Erasmus’s advocacy for education and inward reform, the line becomes counsel for patience and proportion: feel fully, but don’t let feeling become doctrine.