men and affairs?

Folly is gaiety and lightheartedness, indispensable to happiness. The
man of mere reason without passion is a stone image, blunt and without
any human feeling, a spectre or monster, from whom all fly, deaf to all
natural emotions, susceptible neither to love nor compassion. Nothing
escapes him, in nothing he errs; he sees through everything, he weighs
everything accurately, he forgives nothing, he is only satisfied with
himself; he alone is healthy; he alone is king, he alone is free. It is
the hideous figure of the doctrinaire which Erasmus is thinking of.
Which state, he exclaims, would desire such an absolutely wise man for a
magistrate?

He who devotes himself to tasting all the bitterness of life with wise
insight would forthwith deprive himself of life. Only folly is a remedy:
to err, to be mistaken, to be ignorant is to be human. How much better
it is in marriage to be blind to a wife's shortcomings than to make away
with oneself out of jealousy and to fill the world with tragedy!
Adulation is virtue. There is no cordial devotion without a little
adulation. It is the soul of eloquence, of medicine and poetry; it is
the honey and the sweetness of all human customs.

Again a series of valuable social qualities is slyly incorporated with
folly: benevolence, kindness, inclination to approve and to admire.

But especially to approve of oneself. There is no pleasing others
without beginning by flattering ourselves a little and approving of
ourselves. What would the world be if everyone was not proud of his
standing, his calling, so that no person would change places with
another in point of good appearance, of fancy, of good family, of landed
property?

Humbug is the right thing. Why should any one desire true erudition? The
more incompetent a man, the pleasanter his life is and the more he is
admired. Look at professors, poets, orators. Man's mind is so made that
he is more impressed by lies than by the truth. Go to church: if the
priest deals with serious subjects the whole congregation is dozing,
yawning, feeling bored. But when he begins to tell some cock-and-bull
story, they awake, sit up, and hang on his lips.

To be deceived, philosophers say, is a misfortune, but not to be
deceived is a superlative misfortune. If it is human to err, why should
a man be called unhappy because he errs, since he was so born and made,
and it is the fate of all? Do we pity a man because he cannot fly or
does