Francois Rabelais Quotes

#1. O laugh is proper to the man.

Francois Rabelais

#2. It is my feeling that Time ripens all things; with Time all things are revealed; Time is the father of truth.

Francois Rabelais

#3. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind.

Francois Rabelais

#4. The appetite grows with eating.

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 in comfort save when I am hearing a sermon or praying to God.

Francois Rabelais

#9. The most Christian France is the sole wet-nurse to the Roman court.

Francois Rabelais

#10. I never sleep comfortably except when I am at sermon or when I pray to God.

Francois Rabelais

#11. One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span, Because to laugh is proper to the man.

Francois Rabelais

#12. 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

#13. 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. No noble man ever hated good wine.

Francois Rabelais

#15. It is said, proverbially, that happy is the doctor who is called in when the disease is on its way out.

Francois Rabelais

#16. Such is the nature and make-up of the French that they are only good at the start. Then they are worse than devils, but, given time, they're less than women.

Francois Rabelais

#17. One falls to the ground in trying to sit on two stools.

Francois Rabelais

#18. No clock is more regular than the belly.

Francois Rabelais

#19. It is better to write of laughter than of tears, for laughter is the property of man.

Francois Rabelais

#20. In this mortal life, nothing is blessed throughout.

Francois Rabelais

#21. I drink no more than a sponge.

Francois Rabelais

#22. Fate leads the willing, and th' unwilling draws.

Francois Rabelais

#23. How can I govern others, who can't even govern myself?

Francois Rabelais

#24. It is the custom on Africa to always produce new and monstrous things.
[Fr., Afrique est coustumiere toujours choses produire nouvelles et monstrueuses.]

Francois Rabelais

#25. How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself?

Francois Rabelais

#26. 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

#27. It is folly to put the plough in front of the oxen.

Francois Rabelais

#28. Death is the vast perhaps.

Francois Rabelais

#29. May the fire of St. Anthony fly up thy fundament.

Francois Rabelais

#30. Hungry bellies have no cars.

Francois Rabelais

#31. Time, which gnaws and diminisheth all things else, augments and increaseth benefits; because a noble action of liberality, done to a man of reason, doth grow continually by his generous thinking of it and remembering it.

Francois Rabelais

#32. 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

#33. To good and true love fear is forever affixed.

Francois Rabelais

#34. The probity that scintillizes in the superfices of your persons informs my ratiocinating faculty, in a most stupendous manner, of the radiant virtues latent within the precious caskets and ventricles of your minds.

Francois Rabelais

#35. Oh how unhappy is the prince served by such men who are so easily corrupted.

Francois Rabelais

#36. 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

#37. I won't undertake war until I have tried all the arts and means of peace.

Francois Rabelais

#38. A child is not a vase to be filled, but a fire to be lit.

Francois Rabelais

#39. We will take the good-will for the deed.

Francois Rabelais

#40. Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you.
I'd rather write about laughing than crying,
For laughter makes men human, and courageous.

Francois Rabelais

#41. a child is a fire to be lit, not a vase to be filled

Francois Rabelais

#42. There is nothing holy nor sacred to those who have abandoned God and reason in order to follow their perverse desires.

Francois Rabelais

#43. Debts and lies are generally mixed together.

Francois Rabelais

#44. A mother-in-law dies only when another devil is needed in hell.

Francois Rabelais

#45. Because just as arms have no force outside if there is no counsel within a house, study is vain and counsel useless that is not put to virtuous effect when the time calls.

Francois Rabelais

#46. An old monkey never makes a pretty face.

Francois Rabelais

#47. Science without conscience is the soul's perdition.

Francois Rabelais

#48. 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

#49. I build only living stones
men.

Francois Rabelais

#50. The belly has no ears nor is it to be filled with fair words.

Francois Rabelais

#51. He who has not an adventure has not horse or mule, so says Solomon.
Who is too adventurous, said Echephron,
loses horse and mule.

Francois Rabelais

#52. He that has patience may compass anything.

Francois Rabelais

#53. 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

#54. But where are the snows of last year? That was the greatest concern of Villon, the Parisian poet.

Francois Rabelais

#55. I have a remedy against thirst, quite contrary to that which is good against the biting of a mad dog. Keep running after a dog, and he will never bite you; drink always before the thirst, and it will never come upon you.

Francois Rabelais

#56. Remove idleness from the world and soon the arts of Cupid would perish.

Francois Rabelais

#57. Everything comes in time to those who can wait.

Francois Rabelais

#58. 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

#59. Don't limp in front of the lame.

Francois Rabelais

#60. 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

#61. I owe much; I have nothing; the rest I leave to the poor.

Francois Rabelais

#62. Not everyone is a debtor who wishes to be; not everyone who wishes makes creditors.

Francois Rabelais

#63. The dress does not make the monk.
[Fr., L'habit ne fait le moine.]

Francois Rabelais

#64. Thought I to myself, we shall never come off scot-free.

Francois Rabelais

#65. He would flay the fox, say the ape's paternoster, return to his sheep, and turn the hogs to the hay. He would beat the dogs before the lion, put the plough before the oxen, and claw where it did not itch.

Francois Rabelais

#66. A little rain beats down a big wind. Long drinking bouts break open the tun(der).

Francois Rabelais

#67. To laugh is proper to man.

Francois Rabelais

#68. So much is a man worth as he esteems himself.

Francois Rabelais

#69. For God, nothing is impossible. And, if he wanted, in the future women would give birth from their ears.

Francois Rabelais

#70. 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

#71. For he who can wait, everything comes in time.

Francois Rabelais

#72. The Lord forbid that I should be out of debt, as if indeed I could not be trusted.

Francois Rabelais

#73. You have no obligation under the sun other than to discover your real needs, to fulfill them, and to rejoice in doing so.

Francois Rabelais

#74. I have nothing, I owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor.

Francois Rabelais

#75. Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." That's why I'm going. So I don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.

John Green

#76. I've often heard it said, as the common proverb goes, that a fool can teach a wise man well.

Francois Rabelais

#77. Bring down the curtain,
the farce is played out.

Francois Rabelais

#78. I never drink without a thirst, either present or future.

Francois Rabelais

#79. 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

#80. Friends, you will notice that in this world there are many more ballocks than men. Remember this.

Francois Rabelais

#81. From the gut comes the strut, and where hunger reigns, strength abstains.

Francois Rabelais

#82. Ignorance is the mother of all evils.

Francois Rabelais

#83. The remedy for thirst? It is the opposite of the one for a dog bite: run always after a dog, he'll never bite you; drink always before thirst, and it will never overtake you.

Francois Rabelais

#84. Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind.

Francois Rabelais

#85. A crier of green sauce.

Francois Rabelais

#86. Parisians are so besotted, so silly and so naturally inept that a street player, a seller of indulgences, a mule with its cymbals,a fiddler in the middle of a crossroads, will draw more people than would a good Evangelist preacher.

Francois Rabelais

#87. 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

#88. Misery is the company of lawsuits.

Francois Rabelais

#89. I do not drink more than a sponge.

Francois Rabelais

#90. Machination is worth more than force.

Francois Rabelais

#91. 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

#92. Appetite comes with eating ... but thirst goes away with drinking.

Francois Rabelais

#93. I drink for the thirst to come.

Francois Rabelais

#94. Keep running after a dog and he will never bite you.

Francois Rabelais

#95. 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

#96. I go to see a Greater Perhaps.

Francois Rabelais

#97. It's a shame to be called "educated" those who do not study the ancient Greek writers.

Francois Rabelais

#98. Never did a great man hate good wine.

Francois Rabelais

#99. We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what is denied us.

Francois Rabelais

#100. The farce is finished. I go to seek a vast perhaps.

Francois Rabelais