Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Francois Rabelais (French Humanist, Satirist)

François Rabelais (1483–c.1553) was a French physician, humanist, and satirist. Famed for his classic series of satires, Rabelais is noted for his plain humor, lampoon of medieval learning and literature, and affirmation of humanist values.

Born the son of a lawyer from Chinon, in the Loire valley, Rabelais was a rightful Renaissance man owing to his various careers and immense learning. He first became a Franciscan and later a Benedictine monk. After leaving the monastery as a secular priest, he studied law and medicine. In 1530, he entered the University of Montpellier as a medical student and received his degree in two months. He became the private physician and secretary of Jean Du Bellay, an influential bishop of Paris.

Between 1532 and 1552, Rabelais wrote his four-volume masterpiece that has come to be collectively called Gargantua and Pantagruel: Pantagruel (1532,) Gargantua (1534,) Le Tiers Livre (1546,) Le Quart Livre (1552.) A fifth volume appeared in 1562, but its authenticity has been questioned. This comic monster fable has been described as a novel, a satire, and a crude compilation of scatological jokes, and a somber moral inquiry into philosophy, politics, and education.

Rabelais’s influence on English literature has been extensive—particularly noticeable in the works of Samuel Butler, Jonathan Swift, Laurence Sterne, Thomas Love Peacock, and James Joyce.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Francois Rabelais

Time, which gnaws and diminishes all things else, augments and increaseth benefits; because a noble action of liberality doth grow continually by our generously thinking of it and remembering it.
—Francois Rabelais

There are more old drunkards than old physicians.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Drunkenness, Medicine, Doctors

The best protection of a nation is its men; towns and cities cannot have a surer defense than the prowess and virtue of their inhabitants.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Nations

Draw the curtain, the fraud is over.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Blame

How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself?
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Discipline

I drink no more than a sponge.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Drinking

All’s well in the end, if you’ve only the patience to wait.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Patience

He replies nothing but monosyllables. I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Brevity

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.
—Francois Rabelais

He 63 ways of getting money, the most common, most honorable ones being staling, thieving, and robbing.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Crime, Criminals

Half the world does not know how the other half lives.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: World

I have known many who could not when they would, for they had not done it when they could.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Potential

I am going to seek a great purpose, draw the curtain, the farce is played.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Dying, Death

If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your mirror.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Fools

It is wise to get knowledge and learning from every source—from a sot, a pot, a fool, a winter-mitten, or an old slipper.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Knowledge

When I drink, I think; and when I think, I drink.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Alcohol, Alcoholism

Without health, life is not life; it is only a state of languour and suffering-an image of death.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Health

If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Attitude

Science without conscience is the soul’s perdition.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Science

In all companies there are more fools than wise men, and the greater part always gets the better of the wiser.
—Francois Rabelais
Topics: Fools

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