Note 35 — PREFACE.
Henri Van Laun translation
“We have wished to warn and not to bite; to be useful and not to wound; to benefit the morals of men, and not to be detrimental to them.” This quotation is taken from one of the letters of Erasmus to Martin Dorpius, in which the former replies to some criticisms on his “Praise of Folly.” The preface to the “Characters,” altered and augmented several times by the author himself, is found for the first time, in its present form, in the eighth edition of his work.