The Canterbury Tales Quotes

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

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

“No empty handed man can lure a bird”
― 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

“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

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

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

“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

“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

“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

“earn what you can since everything's for sale”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

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

“we know little of the things for which we pray”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

“High on a stag the Goddess held her seat,
And there were little hounds about her feet;
Below her feet there was a sickle moon,
Waxing it seemed, but would be waning soon.
Her statue bore a mantle of bright green,
Her hand a bow with arrows cased and keen;
Her eyes were lowered, gazing as she rode
Down to where Pluto has his dark abode.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“Who shall give a lover any law?’ Love is a greater law, by my troth, than any law written by mortal man.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“For he would rather have, by his bedside, twenty books, bound in black or red, of Aristotle and his philosophy, than rich robes or costly fiddles or gay harps.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“The man who has no wife is no cuckold.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“He who repeats a tale after a man,
Is bound to say, as nearly as he can,
Each single word, if he remembers it,
However rudely spoken or unfit,
Or else the tale he tells will be untrue,
The things invented and the phrases new.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“By God," quod he, "for pleynly, at a word,
Thy drasty rymyng is nat worth a toord!”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“Youre tale anoyeth al this compaignye.
Swich talkyng is nat worth a boterflye,”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“Her statue, glorious in majesty,
Stood naked, floating on a vasty sea,
And from the navel down there were a mass
Of green and glittering waves as bright as glass.
In her right hand a cithern carried she
And on her head, most beautiful to see,
A garland of fresh roses, while above
There circles round her many a flickering dove.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“But for to telle yow al hir beautee,
It lyth nat in my tonge, n'yn my konnyng;
I dar nat undertake so heigh a thyng.
Myn Englissh eek is insufficient.
It moste been a rethor excellent
That koude his colours longynge for that art,
If he sholde hire discryven every part.
I am noon swich, I moot speke as I kan.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“Then the Miller fell off his horse.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“if gold rust, what shall iron do? For if a Priest, upon whom we trust, be foul, no wonder a layman may yield to lust.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“In general, my liege lady,’ he began, ‘Women desire to have dominion Over their husbands, and their lovers too; They want to have mastery over them. That’s what you most desire—even if my life Is forfeit. I am here; do what you like.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“people have managed to marry without arithmetic”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“There are no footnotes or endnotes in this translation. If any explanations or clarifications are required, they are embedded in the body of the text, so as not to interrupt the flow of the words. After all, as Noel Coward once famously remarked, “Having to read a footnote resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love.”
― Gerald J. Davis, The Canterbury Tales: The New Translation

“If you are poor your very brother hates you And all your friends avoid you, sad to say.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales