François Rabelais Quotes

63 Sourced Quotes

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

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

François Rabelais
Here enter you, pure, honest, faithful, true
Expounders of the Scriptures old and new.
Whose glosses do not blind our reason, but
Make it to see the clearer, and who shut
Its passages from hatred, avarice,
Pride, factions, covenants, and all sort of vice.
Come, settle here a charitable faith,
Which neighbourly affection nourisheth.
And whose light chaseth all corrupters hence,
Of the blest word, from the aforesaid sense. The holy sacred Word,
May it always afford
T' us all in common,
Both man and woman,
A spiritual shield and sword,
The holy sacred Word.

François Rabelais
Subject to a kind of disease, which at that time they called lack of money.

François Rabelais
So much is a man worth as he esteems himself.

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

François Rabelais
I encourage all these diabolical calumniators to go hang themselves before the last moon's quarter is done. I will supply the rope.

François Rabelais
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.
Being unwilling therefore any way to degenerate from the hereditary mildness and clemency of my parents, I do now forgive you, deliver you from all fines and imprisonments, fully release you, set you at liberty, and every way make you as frank and free as ever you were before.

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

François Rabelais
Grace, honour, praise, delight,
Here sojourn day and night.
Sound bodies lined
With a good mind,
Do here pursue with might
Grace, honour, praise, delight. Here enter you, and welcome from our hearts,
All noble sparks, endowed with gallant parts.
This is the glorious place, which bravely shall
Afford wherewith to entertain you all.
Were you a thousand, here you shall not want
For anything; for what you'll ask we'll grant.
Stay here, you lively, jovial, handsome, brisk,
Gay, witty, frolic, cheerful, merry, frisk,
Spruce, jocund, courteous, furtherers of trades,
And, in a word, all worthy gentle blades.

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

François Rabelais
In all companies there are more fools than wise men, and the greater part always gets the better of the wiser.

François Rabelais
Last words:
I am going to seek a great perhaps…Bring down the curtain, the farce is played out.

François Rabelais
I am going to seek the great perhaps; draw the curtain, the farce is played.

François Rabelais
Come, pluck up a good heart; speak the truth and shame the devil.

François Rabelais
What do you say? cried they; do you call it Entelechy or Endelechy? Truly, truly, sweet cousins, quoth Panurge, we are a silly sort of grout-headed lobcocks, an't please you; be so kind as to forgive us if we chance to knock words out of joint. As for anything else, we are downright honest fellows and true hearts.

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

François Rabelais
I would have you call to mind the strength of the ancient giants, that undertook to lay the high mountain Pelion on the top of Ossa, and set among those the shady Olympus.

François Rabelais
As soon as he was born, he cried not as other babes use to do, Miez, miez, miez, miez, but with a high, sturdy, and big voice shouted about, Some drink, some drink, some drink, as inviting all the world to drink with him. The noise hereof was so extremely great, that it was heard in both the countries at once of Beauce and Bibarois. I doubt me, that you do not thoroughly believe the truth of this strange nativity. Though you believe it not, I care not much: but an honest man, and of good judgment, believeth still what is told him, and that which he finds written.

François Rabelais
But because, as the wise man Solomon saith, Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and that knowledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul, it behoveth thee to serve, to love, to fear God, and on him to cast all thy thoughts and all thy hope, and by faith formed in charity to cleave unto him, so that thou mayst never be separated from him by thy sins. Suspect the abuses of the world. Set not thy heart upon vanity, for this life is transitory, but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. Be serviceable to all thy neighbours, and love them as thyself. Reverence thy preceptors: shun the conversation of those whom thou desirest not to resemble, and receive not in vain the graces which God hath bestowed upon thee.

François Rabelais
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.

François Rabelais
It becomes you to be wise to smell, feel, and have in estimation these fair books, de haulte gresse, light in the pursuit, and bold at the encounter. Then you must, by a curious reading and frequent meditation, break the bone and suck out the substantific marrow, — that is what I mean by these Pythagorean symbols, — with assured hope of becoming well-advised and valiant by the said reading; for in it you shall find another kind of taste, and a doctrine more profound, which will disclose unto you deep doctrines and dreadful mysteries, as well in what concerneth our religion as matters of the public state and life economical.

François Rabelais
He freshly and cheerfully asked him how a man should kill time.

François Rabelais
Here enter not vile bigots, hypocrites,
Externally devoted apes, base snites,
Puffed-up, wry-necked beasts, worse than the Huns,
Or Ostrogoths, forerunners of baboons:
Cursed snakes, dissembled varlets, seeming sancts,
Slipshod caffards, beggars pretending wants,
Fat chuffcats, smell-feast knockers, doltish gulls,
Out-strouting cluster-fists, contentious bulls,
Fomenters of divisions and debates,
Elsewhere, not here, make sale of your deceits.

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

François Rabelais
What is got over the Devil's back is spent under the belly.

François Rabelais
I am going to seek a grand perhaps; draw the curtain, the farce is played.

François Rabelais
All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good : they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind to it, and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing ; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule, and strictest tie of their order, there was but this one clause to be observed,

François Rabelais
I have already related to you great and admirable things; but, if you might be induced to adventure upon the hazard of believing some other divinity of this sacred Pantagruelion, I very willingly would tell it you. Believe it, if you will, or otherwise, believe it not, I care not which of them you do, they are both alike to me. It shall be sufficient for my purpose to have told you the truth, and the truth I will tell you.

François Rabelais
I have nothing, owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor.

François Rabelais