François Rabelais > Quotes

“I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”
― François Rabelais

“Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you.
I'd rather write about laughing than crying,
For laughter makes men human, and courageous.”
― Francois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

“Science without conscience is the soul's perdition.”
― Francois Rabelais, Pantagruel

“Tell the truth and shame the devil.”
― Francois Rabelais

“Gestures, in love, are incomparably more attractive, effective and valuable than words.”
― François Rabelais

“A mother-in-law dies only when another devil is needed in hell.”
― François Rabelais

“Readers, friends, if you turn these pages
Put your prejudice aside,
For, really, there's nothing here that's outrageous,
Nothing sick, or bad — or contagious.
Not that I sit here glowing with pride
For my book: all you'll find is laughter:
That's all the glory my heart is after,
Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you.
I'd rather write about laughing than crying,
For laughter makes men human, and courageous.”
― François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

“the wise may be instructed by a fool”
― Francois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

“Je m'en vais chercher un grand peut-être.”
― François Rabelais

“I have nothing, I owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor.”
― Francois Rabelais

“a child is a fire to be lit, not a vase to be filled”
― Rabelais, Francois

“If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks.”
― Francois Rabelais

“I am going to seek a great perhaps; draw a curtain, the farce is played out.”
― Rabelais

“We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what is denied us”
― Rabelais, Francois

“Si vous faîtes attention aux signes, quand donc ferez vous attention à ce qu'ils signifient?

If you pay attention to the signs, but when will you pay attention to what they signify?”
― François Rabelais

“Bring down the curtain,
the farce is played out.”
― Francois Rabelais

“it behoves you to develop a sagacious flair for sniffing and smelling out and appreciating such fair and fatted books, to be swiff: in pursuit and bold in the attack, and then, by careful reading and frequent meditation, to crack open the bone and seek out the substantificial marrow – that is to say, what I mean by such Pythagorean symbols – sure in the hope that you will be made witty and wise by that reading; for you will discover therein a very different savour and a more hidden instruction which will reveal to you the highest hidden truths and the most awesome mysteries”
― François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

“Ignorance est mère de tous les maux.”
― François Rabelais

“..to laugh is proper to the man.”
― Francois Rabelais

“Do What Thou Wilt;

because 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.”
― François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

“there are more fools than wise men in all societies, and the larger party always gains the upper hand”
― François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

“This is the true nature of gratitude. Time gnaws and diminishes all things, but it increases and adds to our good deeds: anytime we have extended a generous hand to a rational human being, that goodness keeps growing and glowing in the man's heart, forever remembered, constantly contemplated.”
― François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

“... 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 ...”
― François Rabelais

“‎I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”
― François Rabelais

“May the fire of St. Anthony fly up thy fundament.”
― François Rabelais

“Conheço muitos que não puderam quando deviam porque não quiseram quando podiam.”
― François Rabelais

“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.”
― François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book 1

“Baste! enough! I sup, I wet, I humect, I moisten my gullet, I drink, and all for fear of dying. Drink always and you shall never die.”
― François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book 1

“I go to see a Greater Perhaps.”
― François Rabelais

“...and also celebrate the Skill of the Scythians in that Art, who sent once to Darius King of Persia an Embassador that made him a present of a Bird, a Frog, a Mouse, and five Arrows, without speaking one word; and being ask'd what those Presents meant, and if he had Commission to say any thing, answer'd that he had not; Which puzzl'd and gravell'd Darius very much; till Gobrias, one of the seven Captains that had kil'd the Magi explain'd it, saying to Darius, By these Gifts and Offerings the Scythians silently tell you, that except the Persians like Birds fly up to Heaven, like Mice hide themselves near the Centre of the Earth, or like Frogs dive to the very bottom of Ponds and Lakes, they shall be destroyed by the Power and Arrows of the Scythians.”
― François Rabelais