Geoffrey Chaucer > Quotes

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

“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

“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

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

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

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

“And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.”
― 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

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

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

“For if a priest be foul, on whom we trust,
No wonder is a common man should rust"
-The Prologue of Chaucers Canterbury Tales-”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“And if love is, what thing and which is he? If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo?”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“If no love is, O God, what fele I so?
And if love is, what thing and which is he?
If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo?
If it be wikke, a wonder thynketh me”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“. . . 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. . . .”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“Amor vincit omnia”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“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

“Gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

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

“It is ful fair a man to bere him evene,/For alday meeteth men at unset stevene.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“Be nat wrooth, my lord, though that I pleye. Ful ofte in game a sooth I have herd seye!”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“And what is better than wisedoom (wisdom)? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing

From Canterbury Tales”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“When that Aprille with his shoures sote.
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertue engendred is the flour.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“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.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“Forbid Us Something and That Thing we Desire”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“But Christ's lore and his apostles twelve,
He taught and first he followed it himself.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

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