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François Rabelais
(c. 1494 - 1553)
French priest and writer whose humorous, satirical book, Gargantua and Pantagruel about the exploits of a giant and his son by those names, gave us the word “gargantuan”. Having studied Latin and Greek, he was able to coin hundreds of new words in his books, used for amusing effect.
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Science Quotes by François Rabelais (6 quotes)
Natura abhorret vacuum.
— François Rabelais
This is a maxim that goes back to the Aristotelian philosophers of ancient Greece. It is well-know in English as “Nature abhors a vacuum.” Expressed in Latin, the phrase appears, for example, in Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-64), book 1, chap. 5. Collected in Francois Rabelais, Thomas Urquhart (trans.) and Peter Le Motteux (trans.), Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1900), Vol. 1, 38.
Science sans conscience n’est que le ruine de l’âme.
Knowledge without conscience is but the ruine of the soule.
Knowledge without conscience is but the ruine of the soule.
— François Rabelais
In Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-64), book 2, chap. 8, trans. Thomas Urquhart and Peter Le Motteux (1934), Vol. 1, 204
A hundred devils leap into my body, if there be not more old drunkards than old physicians.
— François Rabelais
As translated to English by Thomas Urquart in Chap. 41, 'How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and breviaries', The Romance of Gargantua and Pantagruel (1838), 112. The original French quote is: “Cent diables me sautent au corps s’il n’y a plus de vieux yurognes, qu’il n’y a de vieux medecins.” From Chap. 41, Gargantua et Pantagruel collected in Les Oeuvres de M. François Rabelais, Docteur en médecine (1596), 132.
By robbing Peter he paid Paul.
— François Rabelais
From the original French, in Gargantua et Pantagruel, Book 1, (1534) as translated by Thomas Urquhart, Master François Rabelais: Five Books of the Lives, Heroic Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua and His Son Pantagruel (1653, 1904), Vol 1, Book 1, Chap 11, 40.
He … thought the moon was made of green cheese.
— François Rabelais
From the original French, in Gargantua et Pantagruel, Book 1, (1534) as translated by Thomas Urquhart, Master François Rabelais: Five Books of the Lives, Heroic Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua and His Son Pantagruel (1653, 1904), Vol 1, Book 1, Chap 11, 40.
We have here other fish to fry.
— François Rabelais
From the original French, in Gargantua et Pantagruel, Book 5, as translated by Peter Anthony Motteaux, Master François Rabelais: Five Books of the Lives, Heroic Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua and His Son Pantagruel (1708, 1904), Vol 3, Book 5, Chap 12, 212.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
