Quotes from Geoffrey Chaucer

the harm that's in the world now as often comes through folly as through malice.

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.

Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge With-inne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so, And spedde as wel in love as men now do.

Lust is addicted to novelty.

Be nat wrooth, my lord, though that I pleye. Ful ofte in game a sooth I have herd seye!

And shame it is, if that a priest take keep, To see a shitten shepherd and clean sheep:

Though there was nowhere one so busy as he/ He was less busy than he seemed to be.

La moraleja de todas las tragedias es la misma: que la Fortuna siempre ataca a los reinos prepotentes cuando menos lo esperan.

you are the cause by which I die

people have managed to marry without arithmetic

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.

O woman's counsel is so often cold! A woman's counsel brought us first to woe, Made Adam out of Paradise to go Where he had been so merry, so well at ease.

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.

For naturally a beast desires to flee From any enemy that he may see, Though never yet he's clapped on such his eye.

Shepherds too soft who let their duty sleep, Encourage wolves to tear the lambs and sleep.

And if love is, what thing and which is he? If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo?

The time always flees; it will wait for no man. And through you are still in the flower of your young manhood, age creeps on steadily, as quiet as a stone, and death meanaces every age and strikes in every rank, for no one escapes. As surely as we know that we will die, so we are uncertain of the day when death shall fall on us.

doctors & druggists wash each other's hands

Truly she was of elegant deportment, and very pleasing and amiable in bearing. She took pains to counterfeit the manners of the court and to be dignified in behavior and to be held worthy of reverence.

I know that my singing doesn't make the moon rise, nor does it make the stars shine. But without my song, the night would seem empty and incomplete. There is more to daybreak than light, just as there is more to nighttime than darkness.

Three years went by in happiness and health; He bore himself so well in peace and war That there was no one Theseus valued more.

Fortune has dealt us this adversity: Some malign aspect or disposition Of Saturn in some adverse position Has brought it on us; nothing's to be done: It stood thus in our stars when we were born; The long and short of it is this: Endure.

Ye sey right sooth; this Monk he clappeth lowde. He spak how Fortune covered with a clowde I noot nevere what; and als of a tragedie Right now ye herde, and pardee, no remedie It is for to biwaille ne compleyne That that is doon, and als it is a peyne, As ye han seyd, to heere of hevynesse. Sire Monk, namoore of this, so God yow blesse! Youre tale anoyeth al this compaignye. Swich talkyng is nat worth a boterflye

This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo, And we been pilgrymes, passynge to and fro.