Geoffrey Chaucer Quotes

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.

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.

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,

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

Lost money is not lost beyond recall, But loss of time brings on the loss of all.

For out of olde feldes, as men seith, Cometh al this newe corn fro yeer to yere; And out of olde bokes, in good feith, Cometh al this newe science that men lere.

And she was fair as is the rose in May.

You are the cause by which I die.

Jesús de Sirach afirma: «Quien tiene el corazón alegre y contento se conserva vigoroso a través de los años, pero un corazón entristecido reseca los huesos».

Soun is noght but air y-broken, And every speche that is spoken, Loud or privee, foul or fair, In his substaunce is but air; For as flaumbe is but lighted smoke, Right so soun is air y-broke.

For I am shave as nye as any frere. But yit I pray un-to youre curtesye: Beth hevy ageyn, or elles mot I die.

One night the citizens of Rome revolted Against his tyrannies and mad ambition And, when he heard them mutiny, he bolted Alone and sought his friends for coalition. The more he knocked and begged them for admission The more they shut their doors and said him nay. And then he saw that of his own perdition He was sole author and he fled away. The people yelled for him and rumbled round So that their shouts were dinning in his ear: ‘Where’s Nero? Where’s the tyrant? Treacherous hound!

Patience is a conquering virtue.

Lo, what said King Solomon, who can teach us so well? ‘Do not befriend an angry man, and walk not along the way with a madman, lest you repent.’ I will no further say.

He kept his tippet stuffed with pins for curls, And pocket-knives, to give to pretty girls.