François Rabelais quotes

François Rabelais was a French Renaissance writer, physician, and humanist, celebrated for his satirical novels about Gargantua and Pantagruel. His works combined humor, fantasy, and sharp social commentary, influencing Western literature and thought. He is remembered for his wit, linguistic creativity, and courageous criticism of authority. Here are 156 of his quotes:

I drink no more than a sponge.

François Rabelais

He that has patience may compass anything.

François Rabelais

Nature abhors a vacuum.

François Rabelais

Everything comes in time to those who can wait.

François Rabelais

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

François Rabelais

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

François Rabelais

I am going to seek a great purpose, draw the curtain, the farce is played.

François Rabelais

So much is a man worth as he esteems himself.

François Rabelais

Corn is the sinews of war.

François Rabelais

A crier of green sauce.

François Rabelais

Looking as like ... as one pea does like another.

François Rabelais

Tell the truth and shame the devil.

François Rabelais

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.

François Rabelais

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.

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

Plain as a nose in a man's face.

François Rabelais

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

François Rabelais

We will take the good-will for the deed.

François Rabelais

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

François Rabelais

What can't be cured must be endured.

François Rabelais

The Devil was sick,-the Devil a monk would be; The Devil was well,-the devil a monk was he.

François Rabelais

Appetite comes with eating, says Angeston. But the thirst goes away with drinking.

François Rabelais