All Quotes by Francois Rabelais
“To good and true love fear is forever affixed.”
“When undertaking marriage, everyone must be the judge of his own thoughts, and take counsel from himself.”
“Readers, friends, if you turn these pages For laughter makes men human, and courageous.”
“I drink no more than a sponge.”
“Appetite comes with eating, says Angeston. But the thirst goes away with drinking.”
“Thought the moon was made of green cheese.”
“He always looked a given horse in the mouth.”
“By robbing Peter he paid Paul, … and hoped to catch larks if ever the heavens should fall.”
“He did not care a button for it.”
“How well I feathered my nest.”
“So much is a man worth as he esteems himself.”
“Send them home as merry as crickets.”
“A good crier of green sauce.”
“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.”
“Comrades, I hear the track and beating of the enemy's horse-feet, and withal perceive that some of them come in a troop and full body against us. Let us rally and close here, then set forward in order, and by this means we shall be able to receive their charge to their loss and our honour.”
“Corn is the sinews of war.”
“In end, this free goodwill and simple meaning of the Canarians wrought such tenderness in my father's heart that he could not abstain from shedding tears, and wept most profusely; then, by choice words very congruously adapted, strove in what he could to diminish the estimation of the good offices which he had done them, saying, that any courtesy he had conferred upon them was not worth a rush, and what favour soever he had showed them he was bound to do it.”
“Here enter not attorneys, barristers, A waiting on your courts by suits in law.”
“Alluring, courtly, comely, fine, complete, Hath given enough wherewith to please us all.”
“Subject to a kind of disease, which at that time they called lack of money.”
“So much is a man worth as he esteems himself.”
“Loupgarou was come with all his giants, who, seeing Pantagruel in a manner alone, was carried away with temerity and presumption, for hopes that he had to kill the good man. Whereupon he said to his companions the giants, You wenchers of the low country, by Mahoom, if any of you undertake to fight against these men here, I will put you cruelly to death. It is my will, that you let me fight single. In the meantime you shall have good sport to look upon us.”
“This flea which I have in mine ear.”
“You have there hit the nail on the head.”
“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.”
“If in your soil it takes, to heaven Where the Pantagruelion grows.”
“Above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges.”
“I'll go his halves.”
“The Devil was sick,—the Devil a monk would be;The Devil was well,—the devil a monk was he.”
“Do not believe what I tell you here any more than if it were some tale of a tub.”
“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.”
“Gestures, in love, are incomparably more attractive, effective and valuable than words.”
“Which was performed to a T.”
“He that has patience may compass anything.”
“We will take the good-will for the deed.”
“You are Christians of the best edition, all picked and culled.”
“Let us fly and save our bacon.”
“Needs must when the Devil drives.”
“Scampering as if the Devil drove them.”
“He freshly and cheerfully asked him how a man should kill time.”
“Whose cockloft is unfurnished.”
“Come, pluck up a good heart; speak the truth and shame the devil.”
“Plain as the nose in a man's face.”
“Like hearts of oak.”
“You shall never want rope enough.”
“Nothing is so dear and precious as time.”
“And thereby hangs a tale.”
“It is meat, drink, and cloth to us.”
“And so on to the end of the chapter.”
“What is got over the Devil's back is spent under the belly.”
“We have here other fish to fry.”
“What cannot be cured must be endured.”
“Thought I to myself, we shall never come off scot-free.”
“It is enough to fright you out of your seven senses.”
“Necessity has no law.”
“Panurge had no sooner heard this, but he was upon the high-rope.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“We saw a knot of others, about a baker's dozen.”
“Others made a virtue of necessity.”
“Spare your breath to cool your porridge.”
“I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.”
“I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”
“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.”
“Misery is the company of lawsuits.”