“I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”

— Francois Rabelais

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Francois Rabelais105

major French Renaissance writer 1494–1553

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“I go to seek a great perhaps”

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“I am going to seek a grand perhaps; draw the curtain, the farce is played.”

Francois Rabelais (1494–1553) major French Renaissance writer

Je m'en vais chercher un grand peut-être; tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée.
Last words, according to the Life of Rabelais (1694) by Peter Anthony Motteux.
Variant translations:
I am going to seek the great perhaps.
I am going to search for the great perhaps.

“Music should humbly seek to please; within these limits great beauty may perhaps be found.”

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Context: Music should humbly seek to please; within these limits great beauty may perhaps be found. Extreme complication is contrary to art. Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part.

“For four thousand years the strong had been rushing on in the road of privilege and power, seeking greatness. Christ stood in the path, and said, " Ye seek greatness. Ye are not even in the way to it. Ye are going up, but the way to greatness is down. Let him who would be great be the love-servant of all." Greatness consists in the facility and power of going down, and not in the facility of going up.”

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Greatness consists in the facility and power of going down, and not in the facility of going up.
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“Perhaps I wasn't going crazy after all. Perhaps I was just becoming a writer.”

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“The great renewal of the world will perhaps consist in this, that man and maid, freed of all false feelings and reluctances, will seek each other not as opposites, but as brother and sister, as neighbors, and will come together as human beings.”

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“I already feel like I’ve come a long way. If this is what’s happened so far, if I keep on the line I’m going, then perhaps many other great things will happen. It’s just the beginning.”

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“I go forth to seek —
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Translated by Irina Zheleznova

“Perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.”

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