Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

François Rabelais

90 quotes

“Would you damn your precious soul?”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“Let us fly and save our bacon.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“Needs must when the Devil drives.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: English proverb (english), Francis Rabelais
“Scampering as if the Devil drove them.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“He freshly and cheerfully asked him how a man should kill time.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“...l'estomach affamé n'a poinct d'aureilles, il n'oyt goutte.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whose cockloft is unfurnished.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“Come, pluck up a good heart; speak the truth and shame the devil.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Plain as the nose in a man's face.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like hearts of oak.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“You shall never want rope enough.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“Looking as like...as one pea does like another.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“Nothing is so dear and precious as time.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“And thereby hangs a tale.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais, William Shakespeare
“It is meat, drink, and cloth to us.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“And so on to the end of the chapter.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“What is got over the Devil's back is spent under the belly.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“We have here other fish to fry.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“What cannot be cured must be endured.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“Thought I to myself, we shall never come off scot-free.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“It is enough to fright you out of your seven senses.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“Necessity has no law.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“Panurge had no sooner heard this, but he was upon the high-rope.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“On the third day the sky seemed to us somewhat clearer, and we happily arrived at the port of Mateotechny, not far distant from Queen Whims, alias the Quintessence. We met full butt on the quay a great number of guards and other military men that garrisoned the arsenal, and we were somewhat frighted at first because they made us all lay down our arms, and in a haughty manner asked us whence we came.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We saw a knot of others, about a baker's dozen.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“Others made a virtue of necessity.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais
“Spare your breath to cool your porridge.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis Rabelais, Miguel de Cervantes
“I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Francis 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 (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Being come down from thence towards Seville, they were heard by Gargantua, who said then unto those that were with him, Comrades and fellow-soldiers, we have here met with an encounter, and they are ten times in number more than we. Shall we charge them or no? What a devil, said the monk, shall we do else? Do you esteem men by their number rather than by their valour and prowess? With this he cried out, Charge, devils, charge! Which when the enemies heard, they thought certainly that they had been very devils, and therefore even then began all of them to run away as hard as they could drive, Drawforth only excepted, who immediately settled his lance on its rest, and therewith hit the monk with all his force on the very middle of his breast, but, coming against his horrific frock, the point of the iron being with the blow either broke off or blunted, it was in matter of execution as if you had struck against an anvil with a little wax-candle.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then shall you many gallant men see by Valour stirr'd up, and youthful fervency, Who, trusting too much in their hopeful time, Live but a while, and perish in their prime. Neither shall any, who this course shall run, Leave off the race which he hath once begun, Till they the heavens with noise by their contention Have fill'd, and with their steps the earth's dimension. Then those shall have no less authority, That have no faith, than those that will not lie; For all shall be governed by a rude, Base, ignorant, and foolish multitude; The veriest lout of all shall be their judge, O horrible and dangerous deluge!”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There has been here from other countries a pack of I know not what overweening self-conceited prigs, as moody as so many mules and as stout as any Scotch lairds, and nothing would serve these, forsooth, but they must wilfully wrangle and stand out against us at their coming; and much they got by it after all. Troth, we e'en fitted them and clawed 'em off with a vengeance, for all they looked so big and so grum. Pray tell me, does your time lie so heavy upon you in your world that you do not know how to bestow it better than in thus impudently talking, disputing, and writing of our sovereign lady?”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Aristotle, that first of men and peerless pattern of all philosophy, was our sovereign lady's godfather, and wisely and properly gave her the name of Entelechy. Her true name then is Entelechy, and may he be in tail beshit, and entail a shit-a-bed faculty and nothing else on his family, who dares call her by any other name; for whoever he is, he does her wrong, and is a very impudent person. You are heartily welcome, gentlemen. With this they colled and clipped us about the neck, which was no small comfort to us, I'll assure you. Panurge then whispered me, Fellow-traveller, quoth he, hast thou not been somewhat afraid this bout? A little, said I. To tell you the truth of it, quoth he, never were the Ephraimites in a greater fear and quandary when the Gileadites killed and drowned them for saying sibboleth instead of shibboleth; and among friends, let me tell you that perhaps there is not a man in the whole country of Beauce but might easily have stopped my bunghole with a cartload of hay. The captain afterwards took us to the queen's palace, leading us silently with great formality. Pantagruel would have said something to him, but the other, not being able to come up to his height, wished for a ladder or a very long pair of stilts; then said, Patience, if it were our sovereign lady's will, we would be as tall as you; well, we shall when she pleases.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The probity that scintillizes in the superfices of your persons informs my ratiocinating faculty, in a most stupendous manner, of the radiant virtues latent within the precious caskets and ventricles of your minds. For, contemplating the mellifluous suavity of your thrice discreet reverences, it is impossible not to be persuaded with facility that neither your affections nor your intellects are vitiated with any defect or privation of liberal and exalted sciences. Far from it, all must judge that in you are lodged a cornucopia and encyclopaedia, an unmeasurable profundity of knowledge in the most peregrine and sublime disciplines, so frequently the admiration, and so rarely the concomitants of the imperite vulgar. This gently compels me, who in preceding times indefatigably kept my private affections absolutely subjugated, to condescend to make my application to you in the trivial phrase of the plebeian world, and assure you that you are well, more than most heartily welcome.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Queen Whims, or Queen Quintessence (which you please), perceiving that we stood as mute as fishes, said: Your taciturnity speaks you not only disciples of Pythagoras, from whom the venerable antiquity of my progenitors in successive propagation was emaned and derives its original, but also discovers, that through the revolution of many retrograde moons, you have in Egypt pressed the extremities of your fingers with the hard tenants of your mouths, and scalptized your heads with frequent applications of your unguicules. In the school of Pythagoras, taciturnity was the symbol of abstracted and superlative knowledge, and the silence of the Egyptians was agnited as an expressive manner of divine adoration; this caused the pontiffs of Hierapolis to sacrifice to the great deity in silence, impercussively, without any vociferous or obstreperous sound. My design is not to enter into a privation of gratitude towards you, but by a vivacious formality, though matter were to abstract itself from me, excentricate to you my cogitations. Having spoken this, she only said to her officers, Tabachins, a panacea; and straight they desired us not to take it amiss if the queen did not invite us to dine with her; for she never ate anything at dinner but some categories, jecabots, emnins, dimions, abstractions, harborins, chelemins, second intentions, carradoths, antitheses, metempsychoses, transcendent prolepsies, and such other light food.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source