Geoffrey Chaucer > Quotes

“Patience is a conquering virtue.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parliament of Birds

“What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“people can die of mere imagination”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“If gold rusts, what then can iron do?”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“the greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Complete Poetry and Prose

“No empty handed man can lure a bird”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“The life so brief, the art so long in the learning, the attempt so hard, the conquest so sharp, the fearful joy that ever slips away so quickly - by all this I mean love, which so sorely astounds my feeling with its wondrous operation, that when I think upon it I scarce know whether I wake or sleep.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“Forbid Us Something and That Thing we Desire”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“Then you compared a woman's love to Hell,
To barren land where water will not dwell,
And you compared it to a quenchless fire,
The more it burns the more is its desire
To burn up everything that burnt can be.
You say that just as worms destroy a tree
A wife destroys her husband and contrives,
As husbands know, the ruin of their lives. ”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“Purity in body and heart
May please some--as for me, I make no boast.
For, as you know, no master of a household
Has all of his utensils made of gold;
Some are wood, and yet they are of use.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Expierience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“Time and Tide wait for no man”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“How potent is the fancy! People are so impressionable, they can die of imagination.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“Amor vincit omnia”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“Love will not be constrain'd by mastery.
When mast'ry comes, the god of love anon
Beateth his wings, and, farewell, he is gone.
Love is a thing as any spirit free.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“the guilty think all talk is of themselves.”
― geoffrey chaucer

“And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.”
― Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“Youth may outrun the old, but not outwit.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“. . . if gold rust, what then will iron do?/ For if a priest be foul in whom we trust/ No wonder that a common man should rust. . . .”
― Chaucer

“Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in switch licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So Priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“By God, if women had written stories,
As clerks had within here oratories,
They would have written of men more wickedness
Than all the mark of Adam may redress.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath's Prologue & Tale

“Ful wys is he that kan himselve knowe.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer

“Yet do not miss the moral, my good men.
For Saint Paul says that all that’s written well
Is written down some useful truth to tell.
Then take the wheat and let the chaff lie still.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“You are the cause by which I die.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Knight's Tale

“It seems to me that poverty is an eyeglass through which one may see his true friends.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“And high above, depicted in a tower,
Sat Conquest, robed in majesty and power,
Under a sword that swung above his head,
Sharp-edged and hanging by a subtle thread.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“And once he had got really drunk on wine,
Then he would speak no language but Latin.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“One flesh they are; and one flesh, so I'd guess,
Has but one heart, come grief or happiness.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer