Quotes from Geoffrey Chaucer

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

Amor vincit omnia

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.

the guilty think all talk is of themselves.

Youth may outrun the old, but not outwit.

Ful wys is he that kan himselve knowe.

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.

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.

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.

And once he had got really drunk on wine, Then he would speak no language but Latin.

It seems to me that poverty is an eyeglass through which one may see his true friends.

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

Make a virtue of necessity.

But, Lord Crist! whan that it remembreth me Upon my yowthe, and on my jolitee, It tickleth me aboute myn herte roote. Unto this day it dooth myn herte boote That I have had my world as in my tyme. But age, alias! that al wole envenyme, Hath me biraft my beautee and my pith. Lat go, farewel! the devel go therwith! The flour is goon, ther is namoore to telle; The bren, as I best kan, now most I selle.

No-wher so bisy a man as he ter nas, And yet he semed bisier that he was.

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

He was as fresh as is the month of May.

First he wrought, and afterwards he taught.

The cat would eat fish but would not get her feet wet.

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

Trouthe is the hyest thyng that man may kepe.

That of all the floures in the mede, Thanne love I most these floures white and rede, Suche as men callen daysyes in her toune.

My house is small, but you are learned men And by your arguments can make a place Twenty foot broad as infinite as space.

With empty hand no man can lure a hawk.