Top 100 Francois Rabelais Quotes
#2. It is my feeling that Time ripens all things; with Time all things are revealed; Time is the father of truth.
Francois Rabelais
#5. If the head is lost, all that perishes is the individual; if the balls are lost, all of human nature perishes.
Francois Rabelais
#6. One should never pursue the hazards of fortune to their very ends andit behooves all adventurers to treat their good luck with reverence, neither bothering nor upsetting it.
Francois Rabelais
#7. Indeed, said the monk, a mass, a matins, and vespers well rung are half-said.
Francois Rabelais
#8. I never sleep comfortably except when I am at sermon or when I pray to God.
Francois Rabelais
#9. One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span, Because to laugh is proper to the man.
Francois Rabelais
#10. I recognize in [my readers] a specific form and individual property, which our predecessors called Pantagruelism, by means of which they never take anything the wrong way that they know to stem from good, honest and loyal hearts.
Francois Rabelais
#11. The right moment wears a full head of hair: when it has been missed, you can't get it back; it's bald in the back of the head and never turns around.
Francois Rabelais
#14. It is better to write of laughter than of tears, for laughter is the property of man.
Francois Rabelais
#18. I know of a charm by way of a prayer that will preserve a man from the violence of guns and all manner of fire-weapons and engines but it will do me no good because I do not believe it
Francois Rabelais
#21. So that we may not be like the Athenians, who never consulted except after the event done.
[Fr., Afin que ne semblons es Athenians, qui ne consultoient jamais sinon apres le cas faict.]
Francois Rabelais
#22. If you say to me: "Master, it would seem that you weren't too terribly wise to have written these bits of nonsense and pleasant mockeries," I respond that you are hardly more so in finding amusement in reading them.
Francois Rabelais
#23. I won't undertake war until I have tried all the arts and means of peace.
Francois Rabelais
#26. A mother-in-law dies only when another devil is needed in hell.
Francois Rabelais
#29. Thirst, for who in the time of innocence would have drunk without being athirst? Nay, sir, it was drinking; for privatio praesupponit habitum.
Francois Rabelais
#32. Wait a second while I take a swig off this bottle: it's my true and only Helicon, my Caballine fount, my sole Enthusiasm. Here, drinking, I deliberate, I reason, I resolve and conclude. After the epilogue I laugh, I write, I compose, I drink. Ennius drinking would write, writing would drink.
Francois Rabelais
#33. But where are the snows of last year? That was the greatest concern of Villon, the Parisian poet.
Francois Rabelais
#34. Remove idleness from the world and soon the arts of Cupid would perish.
Francois Rabelais
#36. I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose ...
Francois Rabelais
#38. It is quite a common and vulgar thing among humans to understand, foresee, know and predict the troubles of others. But oh what a rare thing it is to predict, know, foresee and understand one's own troubles.
Francois Rabelais
#40. Not everyone is a debtor who wishes to be; not everyone who wishes makes creditors.
Francois Rabelais
#43. For God, nothing is impossible. And, if he wanted, in the future women would give birth from their ears.
Francois Rabelais
#44. Can there be any greater dotage in the world than for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, and not by his own judgment.
Francois Rabelais
#45. The Lord forbid that I should be out of debt, as if indeed I could not be trusted.
Francois Rabelais
#46. I've often heard it said, as the common proverb goes, that a fool can teach a wise man well.
Francois Rabelais
#49. All things have their ends and cycles. And when they have reached their highest point, they are in their lowest ruin, for they cannot last for long in such a state. Such is the end for those who cannot moderate their fortune and prosperity with reason and temperance.
Francois Rabelais
#53. I place no hope in my strength, nor in my works: but all my confidence is in God my protector, who never abandons those who have put all their hope and thought in him.
Francois Rabelais
#56. Nature made the day for exercise, work and seeing to one's business; and ... it provides us with a candle, which is to say the bright and joyous light of the sun.
Francois Rabelais
#57. Appetite comes with eating ... but thirst goes away with drinking.
Francois Rabelais
#59. The deed will be accomplished with the least amount of bloodshed possible, and, if possible ... , we'll save all the souls and send them happily off to their abode.
Francois Rabelais
#61. It's a shame to be called "educated" those who do not study the ancient Greek writers.
Francois Rabelais
#63. I drink eternally. For me it is an eternity of drinking, and a drinking up of eternity.
Francois Rabelais
#64. If you understand why a monkey in a family is always mocked and harassed, you understand why monks are rejected by all
both old and young.
Francois Rabelais
#66. Early rising is no pleasure; early drinking's just the measure.
Francois Rabelais
#69. I am going to seek a great purpose, draw the curtain, the farce is played.
Francois Rabelais
#77. Time, which wears down and diminishes all things, augments and increases good deeds, because a good turn liberally offered to a reasonable man grows continually through noble thought and memory.
Francois Rabelais
#78. Languages exist by arbitrary institutions and conventions among peoples; words, as the dialecticians tell us, do not signify naturally, but at our pleasure.
Francois Rabelais
#79. The Devil was sick - the Devil a monk would be, The Devil was well the devil a monk was he
Francois Rabelais
#81. I'd gladly do without a valet. I'm never so well treated as when I'm without a valet.
Francois Rabelais
#82. War begun without good provision of money beforehand for going through with it is but as a breathing of strength and blast that will quickly pass away. Coin is the sinews of war.
Francois Rabelais
#84. There is no truer cause of unhappiness amongst men than, where naturally expecting charity and benevolence, they receive harm and vexation.
Francois Rabelais
#85. When my soul leaves this human dwelling, I will not consider myself to have completely died, but to pass from one state to another, given that, in you and by you, I remain in my visible image in this world.
Francois Rabelais
#86. Believe me, 'tis a godlike thing to lend; to owe is a heroic virtue.
Francois Rabelais
#91. Ha! for a divine and lordly manor, there is nothing like solid ground.
Francois Rabelais
#92. I urge you to spend your youth profitably in study and virtue ... In brief, let me see in you an abyss of knowledge.
Francois Rabelais
#93. A war undertaken without sufficient monies has but a wisp of force. Coins are the very sinews of battles.
Francois Rabelais
#94. The great reproach always brought against Rabelais is not the want of reserve of his language merely, but his occasional studied coarseness, which is enough to spoil his whole work, and which lowers its value.
Francois Rabelais
#95. How do you know antiquity was foolish? How do you know the present is wise? Who made it foolish? Who made it wise?
Francois Rabelais
#97. Bottle, whose Mysterious Deep Do's ten thousand Secrets keep, With attentive Ear I wait; Ease my Mind, and speak my Fate.
Francois Rabelais
#99. When undertaking marriage, everyone must be the judge of his own thoughts, and take counsel from himself.
Francois Rabelais
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