Great Throughts Treasury

"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."

"The farce is finished. I go to seek a vast perhaps."

"The Devil was sick - the Devil a monk would be, The Devil was well the devil a monk was he."

"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."

"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."

"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 scent of wine, oh how much more agreeable, laughing, praying, celestial and delicious it is than that of oil!"

"The very well and abyss of an encyclopaedia."

"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 wise may be instructed by a fool."

"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."

"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."

"There was left only the monk to provide for, whom Gargantua would have made Abbot of Seville, but he refused it. He would have given him the Abbey of Bourgueil, or of Sanct Florent, which was better, or both, if it pleased him ; but the monk gave him a very peremptory answer, that he would never take upon him the charge nor government of monks. For how shall I be able, said he, to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself: If you think I have done you, or may hereafter do you any acceptable service, give me leave to found an abbey after my own mind and fancy."

"There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations."

"There are more old drunkards than old physicians."

"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?"

"This flea which I have in mine ear."

"Thought the moon was made of green cheese."

"To good and true love fear is forever affixed."

"To laugh is proper to man."

"To return to our wethers."

"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."

"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."

"What cannot be cured must be endured."

"We have here other fish to fry."

"We will take the good-will for the deed."

"When undertaking marriage, everyone must be the judge of his own thoughts, and take counsel from himself."

"When I drink, I think; and when I think, I drink."

"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."

"You have there hit the nail on the head."

"Which was performed to a T."

"You are like the eels of Melun; you cry out before you are skinned."

"Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?"

"You shall never want rope enough."

"Would you damn your precious soul?"