Francois Rabelais

Francois Rabelais (1495-1553) was a great French humorist, born at Chinon, the son of a poor apothecary, who was sent to a convent at nine. He became a Franciscan monk, read and studied a great deal, but, sick of convent life, ran away at forty years of age. After that he went to Montpellier, and studied medicine, and for a time practised it, particularly at Lyons. Here he commenced the series of writings that have immortalised his name, his "Gargantua" and "Pantagruel," which he finished as curé of Meudon, forming a succession of satires in a vein of riotous mirth on monks, priests, pedants, and all the incarnate solecisms of the time, yet with all their licentiousness revealing a heart in love with mankind, and a passionate desire for the establishment of truth and justice among men.

Wisdom & Quotes

• Fait ce que voudras. ( Do what you will. )

- Gargantua and Pantagruel

• Je vais querir un grand peut-etre. - Tirez le riduau, la farce est jouee.

( I am going to seek a great perhaps. - Pull down the curtain, the farce is ended. )
- his last words as the tradition tells us

• Natura vaccum abhorret.

( Nature abhors a vacuum. )
- Gargantua

• Is not the night mournful, sad, and melancholy ?

- Gargantua

• Half the world does not know how the other half lives.

- Pantagruel

John Heywood