“Against fortune the carter cracks his whip in vain.”

Languages exist by arbitrary institutions and conventions among peoples; words, as the dialecticians tell us, do not signify naturally, but at our pleasure.

I never drink without a thirst, either present or future.

Science sans conscience. Knowledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul.

Pantagruel was telling me that he believed the queen had given the symbolic word used among her subjects to denote sovereign good cheer, when she said to her tabachins, A panacea.

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

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

Frugality is for the vulgar.

Tell the truth and shame the devil.

Misery is the company of lawsuits.

I drink no more than a sponge.

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

There is no truer cause of unhappiness amongst men than, where naturally expecting charity and benevolence, they receive harm and vexation.

I have known many who could not when they would, for they had not done it when they could.

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

A crier of green sauce.

Oh thrice and four times happy, those who plant cabbages.

I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me.

Human misery must somewhere have a stop; there is no wind that always blows a storm; great good fortune comes to failure in the end.

A tendancy to melancholy – let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.

Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living; profits make you a fortune.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Success, fame, and fortune, they’re all illusions. All there is that is real is the friendship that two can share.

Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.