Library of Samuel Teleki: Part One

Erasmus himself, otherwise a great estimator of books and erudition, did not hesitate to declare 1.) that those who had grown old in books and disciplines were frequently ill-suited for managing the duties of princes and the republic. For, accustomed to the shadows, they somehow grow dull, and as if a cataract had clouded their eyes, they suffer a certain dizziness of the mind as often as they are summoned into the dust and the sun, that is, to civil duties. Indeed, they seek to confirm that libraries and that redundant supply of books harm erudition itself by the authority of Petrarch, the first restorer of ancient literature in the midst of barbarism, who, when asked once why the moderns were far surpassed in the knowledge of letters by those ancient Greeks and Romans, responded 2.) that the cause was that the ancients had diligently studied very few books, but those finished with knowledge and erudition; whereas these moderns, having tasted countless books, most of which were born with the help of a less-than-favorable Lucina the Roman goddess of childbirth, used here to suggest poorly conceived works, only as it were with their lips, but do not make any of them familiar and intimately known to themselves.

1.) Epistolae, Book XXVII, ep. 7.
2.) De remediis utriusque fortunae On the Remedies for Both Kinds of Fortune, Book I, chapters 43-44.