Geoffrey Chaucer Quotes

"By God," quod he, "for pleynly, at a word,
Thy drasty rymyng is nat worth a toord!"

He who repeats a tale after a man,
Is bound to say, as nearly as he can,
Each single word, if he remembers it,
However rudely spoken or unfit,
Or else the tale he tells will be untrue,
The things invented and the phrases new.

I'll die for stifled love, by all that's true.

But for to telle yow al hir beautee,
It lyth nat in my tonge, n'yn my konnyng;
I dar nat undertake so heigh a thyng.
Myn Englissh eek is insufficient.
It moste been a rethor excellent
That koude his colours longynge for that art,
If he sholde hire discryven every part.
I am noon swich, I moot speke as I kan.

Then the Miller fell off his horse.

If you are poor your very brother hates you And all your friends avoid you, sad to say.

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.

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.

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

Lust is addicted to novelty.

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.

people have managed to marry without arithmetic

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

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

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.