Quotes by Geoffrey 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.

Full wise is he that can himself know.

Hold it wise ...
To make a virtue of necessity.

Gold stimulates the heart, or so we're told.
He therefore had a special love of gold.

Certain, when I was born, so long ago,
Death drew the tap of life and let it flow;
And ever since the tap has done its task,
And now there's little but an empty cask.

Of harmes two the less is for to chose.

For out of old fields, as men saith,
Cometh all this new corn from year to year;
And out of old books, in good faith,
Cometh all this new science that men learn.

A blind man cannot judge well in hues.

For aye as busy as bees been they.

Lo, here hath lust his domination,
And appetite flemeth discretion.

Your greedy gluttonous lustful appetite!
Out of the very toughest bones they beat
The marrow, since they will throw nothing out
That may slip down the gullet sweet and smooth.

Abstinence is approved of God.

One cannot scold or complain at every word. Learn to endure patiently, or else, as I live and breathe, you shall learn it whether you want or not.

Who then may trust the dice, at Fortune's throw?

Drunkenness is the very sepulcher
Of man's wit and his discretion.

Soun is noght but air ybroken, And every speche that is spoken, Loud or privee, foul or fair, In his substaunce is but air; For as flaumbe is but lighted smoke, Right so soun is air ybroke.

If were not foolish young, were foolish old.

One shouldn't be too inquisitive in life Either about God's secrets or one's wife.

Thus in this heaven he took his delight And smothered her with kisses upon kisses
Till gradually he came to know where bliss is.

Love is blind.

You are the cause by which I die.

But we'll try anything once hot or cold; A man must be a young food, or an old.

Eke wonder last but nine deies never in toun.

You will not be master of my body and my property.

Woe to the cook whose sauce has no sting.

He who accepts his poverty unhurt I'd say is rich although he lacked a shirt. But truly poor are they who whine and fret and covet what they cannot hope to get.

One cannot be avenged for every wrong; according to the occasion, everyone who knows how, must use temperance.

Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.

Earn what you can since everything's for sale.

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.

Death is the end of every worldly pain.

And brought of mighty ale a large quart.

But Christ's lore and his apostles twelve,
He taught and first he followed it himself.

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.

This flour of wifly patience.

If love be good, from whence cometh my woe?

If a man really loves a woman, of course he wouldn't marry her for the world if he were not quite sure that he was the best person she could possibly marry.

But al be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.

Take a cat, nourish it well with milk and tender meat, make it a couch of silk.

The devil can only destroy those who are already on their way to damnation.

And so it is in politics, dear brother, Each for himself alone, there is no other.

Doctors and druggists wash each other's hands.

He that loveth God will do diligence to please God by his works, and abandon himself, with all his might, well for to do.

What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.

But all thing which that shineth as the gold Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told.

It is nought good a sleping hound to wake.

Certes, they been lye to hounds, for an hound when he cometh by the roses, or by other bushes, though he may nat pisse, yet wole he heve up his leg and make a countenance to pisse.

How potent is the fancy! People are so impressionable, they can die of imagination.

Look up on high, and thank the God of all.

His spirit chaunged house and wente ther,
As I cam nevere, I kan nat tellen wher.

And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.

A yokel mind loves stories from of old, Being the kind it can repeat and hold.

The fields have eyes, and the woods have ears.

Right as an aspen lefe she gan to quake.

For hym was levere have at his beddes heed Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophie, Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrie.

For in their hearts doth Nature stir them so Then people long on pilgrimage to go And palmers to be seeking foreign strands To distant shrines renowned in sundry lands.

Many a true word is spoken in jest.

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.

That field hath eyen, and the wood hath ears.

Nature, the vicar of the Almighty Lord.

So was hir jolly whistel wel y-wette.

With empty hand no man can lure a hawk.

People have managed to marry without arithmetic.

Strike while the iron is hot.

Every honest miller has a golden thumb.

We're like two dogs in battle on their own;
They fought all day but neither got the bone,
There came a kite above them, nothing loth,
And while they fought he took it from them both.

The gretteste clerkes been noght wisest men.

And then the wren gan scippen and to daunce.

Alas, alas, that ever love was sin! I ever followed natural inclination Under the power of my constellation And was unable to deny, in truth, My chamber of Venus to a likely youth.

Women naturally desire the same six things as I; they want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous with money, obedient to the wife, and lively in bed.

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote.

In April the sweet showers fall And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all The veins are bathed in liquor of such power As brings about the engendering of the flower.

And after winter folweth grene May.

If gold rusts, what then can iron do?

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.

All good things must come to an end.

First he wrought, and afterward he taught.

Murder will out, this my conclusion.

Filth and old age, I'm sure you will agree, are powerful wardens upon chastity.

People can die of mere imagination.

Whoso will pray, he must fast and be clean, And fat his soul, and make his body lean.

The guilty think all talk is of themselves.

Forbid us something, and that thing we desire.

We know little of the things for which we pray.

Women desire six things: They want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous, obedient to wife, and lively in bed.

The life so short, the crafts so long to learn.

There's no workman, whatsoever he be, That may both work well and hastily.

Time and tide wait for no man.

By nature, men love newfangledness.

Nowhere so busy a man as he than he, and yet he seemed busier than he was.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

There's never a new fashion but it's old.

He was as fresh as is the month of May.

I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose.