Geoffrey Chaucer Quotes

A priest should take to heart the shameful scene of shepards filthy while the sheep are clean.

Thus in this heaven he took his delight And smothered her with kisses upon kisses Till gradually he came to know where bliss is.

nadie debe echar sobre sus espaldas fardo que no pueda llevar.

"Just as there never died a man," quoth he, "But he had lived on earth in some degree, Just so there never lived a man," he said, "In all this world, but must be sometime dead. This world is but a thoroughfare of woe, And we are pilgrims passing to and fro;"

"Full is my heart of revelry and grace." But suddenly he fell in grievous case; For ever the latter end of joy is woe. God knows that worldly joys do swiftly go; And if a rhetorician could but write, He in some chronicle might well indite And mark it down as sovereign in degree.

For, by this Sin, God loses the Church and the souls that He bought with His precious blood, when Churches are given to those who are not worthy. Into these Churches are put thieves who steal souls from Jesus Christ and destroy His patrimony. By reason of such unworthy Priests and Curates do ignorant men lose all reverence for the sacraments of Holy Church, and such usurpers of Churches put out of the Church the children of Christ and put into the Church the Devil’s own sons. They sell the souls of the lambs they are sworn to save to the wolf that will slay them. And, therefore, these disreputable Priests should never have any part of the pasture of lambs, which is the bliss of Heaven.

Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal! Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al; Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede: And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.

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

But we'll try anything once hot or cold; A man must be a young food, or an old

So astute was he in his buying and selling, and in his borrowings, that no one knew if he was in debt.

have you killed me, false thief?

Ful craftier to pley she was Than Athalus, that made the game First of the ches: so was his name.

Nature, the vicar of th' Almightie Lorde.

Yet from the wise take this for common sense That to the poor all times are out of joint Therefore beware of reaching such a point.

He hath considered shortly, in a clause
The trespas of hem bothe, and eek the cause,
And althogh that his ire hir gilt accused,
Yet in his resoun he hem bothe excused,
As thus: he thoghte wel that every man
Wol helpe himself in love if that he kan,
And eek delivere himself out of prisoun;