Francois Rabelais Quotes

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

No noble man ever hated good wine.

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

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

An old monkey never makes a pretty face.

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

Death is the vast perhaps.

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

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.

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

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

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

In this mortal life, nothing is blessed throughout.

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.

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

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

Giving words [is] an act of lovers.

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

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

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

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

I drink for the thirst to come.

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.

Never did a great man hate good wine.

I'd gladly do without a valet. I'm never so well treated as when I'm without a valet.

Debts and lies are generally mixed together. [Fr., Debtes et mensonges sont ordinairement ensemble rallies.]

A man of good sense always believes what he is told, and what he finds written down.

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

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

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

How comes it that you curse, Frere Jean? It's only, said the monk, in order to embellish my language. They are the colors of Ciceronian rhetoric.

Ha! for a divine and lordly manor, there is nothing like solid ground.

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.

Pantagruel was telling me that he believed the queen had given the symbolic word used among her subjects to denote sovereign good cheer, when she said to her tabachins, A panacea.

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

We have here other fish to fry.

Then I began to think that it is very true which is commonly said that the one-half of the world knoweth not how the other half liveth.

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

He replies nothing but monosyllables. I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.

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