François Rabelais quotes - page 4

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:

Nothing is so dear and precious as time.

François Rabelais

Needs must when the Devil drives.

François Rabelais

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.

François Rabelais

Do not believe what I tell you here any more than if it were some tale of a tub.

François Rabelais

I never follow the clock: hours were made for man, not man for hours.

François Rabelais

You have there hit the nail on the head.

François Rabelais

Let us fly and save our bacon.

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

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

Scampering as if the Devil drove them.

François Rabelais

You are Christians of the best edition, all picked and culled.

François Rabelais

Necessity has no law.

François Rabelais

Above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges.

François Rabelais

By robbing Peter he paid Paul, ... and hoped to catch larks if ever the heavens should fall.

François Rabelais

This flea which I have in mine ear.

François Rabelais

Then fail not most carefully to peruse the books of the Greek, Arabian, and Latin physicians, not despising the Talmudists and Cabalists; and by frequent anatomies get thee the perfect knowledge of that other world, called the microcosm, which is man. And at some of the hours of the day apply thy mind to the study of the Holy Scriptures; first, in Greek, the New Testament, with the Epistles of the Apostles;: and then the Old Testament in Hebrew. In brief, let me see thee an abyss and bottomless pit of knowledge; for from henceforward, as thou growest great and becomest a man, thou must part from this tranquillity and rest of study, thou must learn chivalry, warfare, and the exercises of the field, the better thereby to defend my house and our friends, and to succour and protect them at all their needs against the invasion and assaults of evildoers.

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

You shall never want rope enough.

François Rabelais

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

François Rabelais

Send them home as merry as crickets.

François Rabelais

Spare your breath to cool your porridge.

François Rabelais

Thought the moon was made of green cheese.

François Rabelais