Francois Rabelais Quotes - Page 2

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

Frugality is for the vulgar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am going to seek a great perhaps.

Plain as a nose in a man's face.

An old monkey never makes a pretty face.

Strike the iron whilst it is hot.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.]

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.