Geoffrey Chaucer Quotes

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Who looks at me, beholdeth sorrows all, All pain, all torture, woe and all distress; I have no need on other harms to call, As anguish, languor, cruel bitterness, Discomfort, dread, and madness more and less; Methinks from heaven above the tears must rain In pity for my harsh and cruel pain.

Geoffrey Chaucer
The tyme, that may not sojourne But goth, and never may retourne, As water that down runneth ay, But never drope retourne may; Ther may no-thing as tyme endure, Metal, nor erthely creature; For alle thing it fret, and shal: The tyme eek, that chaungeth al, And all doth waxe and fostred be, And alle thing destroyeth he.

Geoffrey Chaucer
There was the murdered corpse, in covert laid,
And violent death in thousand shapes displayed;
The city to the soldier's rage resigned;
Successless wars, and poverty behind;
Ships burnt in fight, or forced on rocky shores,
And the rash hunter strangled by the boars;
The newborn babe by nurses overlaid;
And the cook caught within the raging fire he made.

Geoffrey Chaucer
Men sholde nat knowe of Goddes pryvetee Ye, blessed be alwey, a lewed man That noght but oonly his believe kan! So ferde another clerk with astromye, He walked in the feelds, for to prye Upon the sterres, what ther sholde bifalle, Til he was in a marle-pit yfalle.

Geoffrey Chaucer
The seven bodies I'll describe anon: Sol, gold is, Luna's silver, as we see, Mars iron, and quicksilver's Mercury, Saturn is lead, and Jupiter is tin, And Venus copper, by my father's kin!

Geoffrey Chaucer
Patience is a conquering virtue. The learned say that, if it not desert you, It vanquishes what force can never reach; Why answer back at every angry speech? No, learn forbearance or, I'll tell you what, You will be taught it, whether you will or not.

Geoffrey Chaucer
Lat take a cat, and fostre him wel with milk, And tendre flesh, and make his couche of silk, And let him seen a mous go by the wal; Anon he weyveth milk, and flesh, and al, And every deyntee that is in that hous, Swich appetyt hath he to ete a mous.

Geoffrey Chaucer
Til that the brighte sonne loste his hewe; For th'orisonte hath reft the sonne his lyght; This is as muche to seye as it was nyght!

Geoffrey Chaucer
For God's love, take things patiently, have sense, Think! We are prisoners and shall always be. Fortune has given us this adversity, Some wicked planetary dispensation, Some Saturn's trick or evil constellation Has given us this, and Heaven, though we had sworn The contrary, so stood when we were born. We must endure it, that's the long and short.

Geoffrey Chaucer
And as for me, thogh that I can but lyte, On bakes for to rede I me delyte, And to hem yeve I feyth and ful credence, And in myn herte have hem in reverence So hertely, that ther is game noon, That fro my bokes maketh me to goon, But hit be seldom, on the holyday; Save, certeynly, when that the month of May Is comen, and that I here the foules singe, And that the floures ginnen for to springe, Farwel my book and my devocion.

Geoffrey Chaucer
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.

Geoffrey Chaucer
A whetstone is no carving instrument, And yet it maketh sharp the carving tool; And if you see my efforts wrongly spent, Eschew that course and learn out of my school; For thus the wise may profit by the fool, And edge his wit, and grow more keen and wary, For wisdom shines opposed to its contrary.

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

Geoffrey Chaucer
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.

Geoffrey Chaucer
But manly set the world on sixe and sevene; And, if thou deye a martir, go to hevene.

Geoffrey Chaucer
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.

Geoffrey Chaucer
For many a pasty have you robbed of blood, And many a Jack of Dover have you sold That has been heated twice and twice grown cold. From many a pilgrim have you had Christ's curse, For of your parsley they yet fare the worse, Which they have eaten with your stubble goose; For in your shop full many a fly is loose.

Geoffrey Chaucer
The handsome gifts that fate and nature lend us Most often are the very ones that end us.

Geoffrey Chaucer
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.

Geoffrey Chaucer
See yonder, lo, the Galaxye Which men clepeth the Milky Wey, For hit is whyt.

Geoffrey Chaucer
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.

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

Geoffrey Chaucer
Full many a maiden, bright in bower Did long for him for paramour When they were best asleep; But chaste he was, no lecher sure, And sweet as is the bramble-flower That beareth a rich red hepe.

Geoffrey Chaucer
Remember in the forms of speech comes change Within a thousand years, and words that then Were well esteemed, seem foolish now and strange; And yet they spake them so, time and again, And thrived in love as well as any men; And so to win their loves in sundry days, In sundry lands there are as many ways.

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

Geoffrey Chaucer