Quotes by Francois Rabelais

• We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what is denied us.
• Tell the truth and shame the devil.
• It is better to write of laughter than of tears, for laughter is the property of man.
• It is my feeling that Time ripens all things; with Time all things are revealed; Time is the father of truth.
• Misery is the company of lawsuits.
• Nature abhors a vacuum.
• One falls to the ground in trying to sit on two stools.
• In their rules there was only one clause: Do what you will.
• Science without conscience is the death of the soul.
• The farce is finished. I go to seek a vast perhaps.
• The remedy for thirst? It is the opposite of the one for a dog bite: run always after a dog, he'll never bite you; drink always before thirst, and it will never overtake you.
• The right moment wears a full head of hair: when it has been missed, you can't get it back; it's bald in the back of the head and never turns around.
• The scent of wine, oh how much more agreeable, laughing, praying, celestial and delicious it is than that of oil!
• There are more old drunkards than old physicians.
• There is no truer cause of unhappiness amongst men than, where naturally expecting charity and benevolence, they receive harm and vexation.
• Ignorance is the mother of all evils.
• To good and true love fear is forever affixed.
• No clock is more regular than the belly.
• When I drink, I think; and when I think, I drink.
• When undertaking marriage, everyone must be the judge of his own thoughts, and take counsel from himself.
• 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.
• Everything comes in time to those who can wait.
• Remove idleness from the world and soon the arts of Cupid would perish.
• If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your looking glass.
• A bellyful is a bellyful.
• A habit does not a monk make.
• Because just as arms have no force outside if there is no counsel within a house, study is vain and counsel useless that is not put to virtuous effect when the time calls.
• Debts and lies are generally mixed together.
• For he who can wait, everything comes in time.
• Friends, you will notice that in this world there are many more ballocks than men. Remember this.
• From the gut comes the strut, and where hunger reigns, strength abstains.
• Frugality is for the vulgar.
• 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.
• Half the world does not know how the other half lives.
• How can I govern others, who can't even govern myself?
• How do you know antiquity was foolish? How do you know the present is wise? Who made it foolish? Who made it wise?
• How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself?
• I drink no more than a sponge.
• I have known many who could not when they would, for they had not done it when they could.
• Gestures, in love, are incomparably more attractive, effective and valuable than words.
• Believe me, 'tis a godlike thing to lend; to owe is a heroic virtue.
• I won't undertake war until I have tried all the arts and means of peace.
• If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks.