Francois rabelais quotes

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

How do you know antiquity was foolish? How do you know the present is wise? Who made it foolish? Who made it wise?

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

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

No clock is more regular than the belly.

In their rules there was only one clause: Do what you will.

There is no truer cause of unhappiness amongst men than, where naturally expecting charity and benevolence, they receive harm and vexation.

There are more old drunkards than old physicians. [Fr., Il y a plus de vieux ivrongnes qu'il y a de vieux medecins.]

Machination is worth more than force.

If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks.

Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind.

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.

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

Pantagruelism is a certain gaitey of the spirit consisting in a disdain for the hazards of fortune.

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

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.

Frugality is for the vulgar.

Death is the vast perhaps.

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

I drink no more than a sponge.

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

I am going to seek a great perhaps.

I have known many who could not when they would, for they had not done it when they could.

A bellyful is a bellyful.

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

Debts and lies are generally mixed together.

A certain jollity of mind, pickled in the scorn of fortune.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

If you wish to avoid seeing a fool, you must first break your mirror

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

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.

To laugh is proper to man.

The scent of wine, oh how much more agreeable, laughing, praying, celestial and delicious it is than that of oil!

I am going to seek a grand perhaps.

Do you know what Agelisas said, when he was asked why the great city of Lacedomonie was not girded with walls? Because, pointing out the inhabitants and citizens of the city, so expert in military discipline and so strong and well armed: "Here," he said, "are the walls of the city," meaning that there is no wall but of bones, and that towns and cities can have no more secure nor stronger wall than the virtue of their citizens and inhabitants.

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

The appetite grows with eating.

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.

Half the world does not know how the other half lives.

Indeed, said the monk, a mass, a matins, and vespers well rung are half-said.

A good intention does not mean honor. [Fr., A bon entendeur ne faut qu'un parole.]

No noble man ever hated good wine.

Science without conscience is the soul's perdition.

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

So much is a man worth as he esteems himself.

There are more old drunkards than old physicians.

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

Gargantua, at the age of four hundred four score and forty- four years begat his son Pantagruel, from his wife, named Badebec, daughter of the King of the Amaurotes in Utopia, who died in child-birth: because he was marvelously huge and so heavy that he could not come to light without suffocating his mother.

Men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition, by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude, wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us.

Don't limp in front of the lame.

Ignorance is the mother of all evils.

Misery is the company of lawsuits.

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.

Of a young hermit, an old devil. [Fr., De jeune hermite, vieil diable.]

A habit does not a monk make.

Row on [whatever happens]. [Lat., Vogue la galere.]

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

If you want to avoid seeing an idiot, break the mirror.

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.

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

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.

If in your soil it takes, to heaven A thousand thousand thanks be given; And say with France, it goodly goes, Where the Pantagruelion grows.

Bring down the curtain, the farce is over

According to true military art, one should never push one's enemy to the point of despair, because such a state multiplies his strength and increases his courage which had already been crushed and failing, and because there is no better remedy for the health of beaten and overwhelmed men than the absence of all hope.

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.

When undertaking marriage, everyone must be the judge of his own thoughts, and take counsel from himself.

Believe me, 'tis a godlike thing to lend; to owe is a heroic virtue.

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

To good and true love, fear is forever affixed.

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

Do not limp before the lame. [Old Fr., Ne clochez pas devant les boyteus.]

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.

Go, all of you poor people, in the name of God the Creator, and let him forever be your guide. And henceforth, do not be beguiledby these idle and useless pilgrimages. See to your families, and work, each one of you, in your vocation, raise your children, and live as the good Apostle Paul teaches you.

Never did a great man hate good wine.

I'd rather write about laughing than crying, For laughter makes men human, and courageous.

If the head is lost, all that perishes is the individual; if the balls are lost, all of human nature perishes.

An old monkey never makes a pretty face.

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.

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

Early rising is no pleasure; early drinking's just the measure.

I do not drink more than a sponge.

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

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.

Hungry bellies have no ears. [Fr., La ventre affame n'point d'oreilles.]

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

He that has patience may compass anything.

I urge you to spend your youth profitably in study and virtue.... In brief, let me see in you an abyss of knowledge.

Strike the iron whilst it is hot.

Tell the truth and shame the devil.

I drink eternally. For me it is an eternity of drinking, and a drinking up of eternity.

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

All's well in the end, if you've only the patience to wait.

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

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

Giving words [is] an act of lovers.

Because, according to the sage Solomon, wisdom does not enter into a soul that seeks after evil, and knowledge without conscienceis the ruin of the soul, it behooves you to serve, love and fear God and to put all your thoughts and hope in him, and by faith founded in charity, be joined to him, such that you never be separated from him by sin.

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

Science sans conscience n' est que le ruine de l'âme. Knowledge without conscience is but the ruine of the soule.

Bottle, whose Mysterious Deep Do's ten thousand Secrets keep, With attentive Ear I wait; Ease my Mind, and speak my Fate.

When I drink, I think; and when I think, I drink.

Gestures, in love, are incomparably more attractive, effective and valuable than words.

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.

Oh thrice and four times happy... those who plant cabbages.

Few and signally blessed are those whom Jupiter has destined to be cabbage-planters. For they've always one foot on the ground andthe other not far from it. Anyone is welcome to argue about felicity and supreme happiness. But the man who plants cabbages I now positively declare to be the happiest of mortals.

Fate leads the willing, and th' unwilling draws.

Languages exist by arbitrary institutions and conventions among peoples; words, as the dialecticians tell us, do not signify naturally, but at our pleasure.

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

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.

Everything comes in time to those who can wait.

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

In this mortal life, nothing is blessed throughout.

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

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

I build only living stones--men.

Always open all gates and roads to your enemies, and rather make for them a bridge of silver, to get rid of them. [Fr., Ouvrez toujours a vos ennemis toutes les portes et chemin, et plutot leur faites un pont d'argent, afin de les renvoyer.]

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.

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

Plain as a nose in a man's face.

What harm in learning and getting knowledge even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a mitten, or a slipper. [Fr., Que nuist savoir tousjours et tousjours apprendre, fust ce D'un sot, d'une pot, d'une que--doufle D'un mouffe, d'un pantoufle.]

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.]

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.

If you wish to be good "Pantagruelists" (which is to say, live in peace, joy, health, and always dining well), never put too much faith in people who look out through a hole.

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.

Against fortune the carter cracks his whip in vain. [Fr., Centre fortune, la diverse un chartier rompit nazardes son fouet.]

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