Top 100 François Rabelais Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”

— François Rabelais

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2. “Everything comes in time to those who can wait.”

— François Rabelais

3. “Ignorance is the mother of all evils.”

— François Rabelais

4. “Science without conscience is the soul’s perdition.”

— François Rabelais

5. “Nature abhors a vacuum.”

— François Rabelais

6. “Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind.”

— François Rabelais

7. “The appetite grows with eating.”

— François Rabelais

8. “When I drink, I think; and when I think, I drink.”

— François Rabelais

9. “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

10. “All’s well in the end, if you’ve only the patience to wait.”

— François Rabelais

11. “Death is the vast perhaps.”

— François Rabelais

12. “Bring down the curtain, the farce is over.”

— François Rabelais

13. “It is my feeling that Time ripens all things; with Time all things are revealed; Time is the father of truth.”

— François Rabelais

14. “If you wish to avoid seeing a fool, you must first break your mirror.”

— François Rabelais

15. “We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what is denied us.”

— François Rabelais

16. “Debts and lies are generally mixed together.”

— François Rabelais

17. “Tell the truth and shame the devil.”

— François Rabelais

18. “It is better to write of laughter than of tears, for laughter is the property of man.”

— François Rabelais

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

— François Rabelais

20. “Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind.”

— François Rabelais

21. “For God, nothing is impossible. And, if he wanted, in the future women would give birth from their ears.”

— François Rabelais

22. “I’ve often heard it said, as the common proverb goes, that a fool can teach a wise man well.”

— François Rabelais

23. “I’d rather write about laughing than crying, For laughter makes men human, and courageous.”

— François Rabelais

24. “No noble man ever hated good wine.”

— François Rabelais

25. “One falls to the ground in trying to sit on two stools.”

— François Rabelais

26. “Ha! for a divine and lordly manor, there is nothing like solid ground.”

— François Rabelais

27. “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

28. “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.”

— François Rabelais

29. “One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span, Because to laugh is proper to the man.”

— François Rabelais

30. “The Devil was sick – the Devil a monk would be, The Devil was well the devil a monk was he.”

— François Rabelais

31. “I owe much; I have nothing; the rest I leave to the poor.”

— François Rabelais

32. “I drink for the thirst to come.”

— François Rabelais

33. “He that has patience may compass anything.”

— François Rabelais

34. “Don’t limp in front of the lame.”

— François Rabelais

35. “To laugh is proper to man.”

— François Rabelais

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

— François Rabelais

37. “Petite ville, grand renom. Small town, great renown.”

— François Rabelais

38. “All things have their ends and cycles. And when they have reached their highest point, they are in their lowest ruin, for they cannot last for long in such a state. Such is the end for those who cannot moderate their fortune and prosperity with reason and temperance.”

— François Rabelais

39. “To good and true love, fear is forever affixed.”

— François Rabelais

40. “In this mortal life, nothing is blessed throughout.”

— François Rabelais

41. “It’s a shame to be called “educated” those who do not study the ancient Greek writers.”

— François Rabelais

42. “An old monkey never makes a pretty face.”

— François Rabelais

43. “Bottle, whose Mysterious Deep Do’s ten thousand Secrets keep, With attentive Ear I wait; Ease my Mind, and speak my Fate.”

— François Rabelais

44. “I build only living stones – men.”

— François Rabelais

45. “I never sleep comfortably except when I am at sermon or when I pray to God.”

— François Rabelais

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

— François Rabelais

47. “Plain as a nose in a man’s face.”

— François Rabelais

48. “Never did a great man hate good wine.”

— François Rabelais

49. “So much is a man worth as he esteems himself.”

— François Rabelais

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

— François Rabelais