Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop
Meaning: You cannot permanently suppress your real character.
Language: French
Literally: Drive out nature and it comes back at a gallop
Category: Animals
Origin: From Destouches's 1732 comedy Le Glorieux, rendering Horace's naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret. The gallop is Destouches's addition and is what makes the line memorable.
More idioms — Animals
- Comme un poisson dans l'eau — Completely at ease in one's element.
- Tuer la poule aux œufs d'or — To destroy a source of steady profit out of greed for all of it at once.
- Écrire un poulet à quelqu'un — To send a love letter.
- À la queue leu leu — In single file, one behind another.
- Avoir la queue entre les jambes — To slink off humiliated.
- Manger à tous les râteliers — To take advantage from all sides at once, with no loyalty to any.
More French idioms
- C'est la mer à boire — It is an impossible or endless task — most often used in the negative.
- Faire son miel de quelque chose — To turn something to one's own advantage.
- La substantifique moelle — The essential substance of something, reached only by real effort.
- On ne fait pas d'omelette sans casser des œufs — Worthwhile results require some damage along the way.
- Refiler la patate chaude — To hand an awkward problem to someone else.
- Dans le pétrin — In serious trouble.
From our untranslatable words
- Épanouissement — The full flourishing of a person — blooming into your most complete, radiant self. More t…
- Ressourcement — The act of returning to one's roots or origins to find renewal — going back to a place, t…
- Dépaysement — The disorienting yet often pleasant feeling of being far from home, immersed in the unfam…
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