John Lydgate Quotes

Off oure language he was the lodesterre.

He is the first of our writers whose style is cloathed with that perspicuity, in which the English phraseology appears at this day to an English reader…Whether his subject be the life of a hermit or a hero, of saint Austin or Guy earl of Warwick, ludicrous or legendary, religious or romantic, a history or an allegory, he writes with facility.

He as a kyng is crowned in Fairie,
With sceptre and suerd, & with his regalie
Shal resorte as lord and souereyne,
Out of Fairye & regne in Breteyne,
And repaire ageyn the Rounde Table.

A prowde hert in a beggers brest,
A fowle visage with gay temples of atyre,
Horrible othes with an holy prist,
A justice of juges to selle and lete to hyre,
A knave to comande and have an empire,
To yeve a jugement of that never was wrought,
To preche of pees and sette eche man on fyre,
It may wele ryme but it accordith nought.

The wheel of Fortune tourneth as a ball;
Sodeyn clymbyng axeth a sodeyn fall.

For a story which is nat pleynli told,
But constreynyd undir woordes fewe
For lak off trouthe, wher thei be newe or olde,
Men bi report kan nat the mater shewe.

For princis ofte, of furious hastynesse,
Wil cachche a quarrel, causeless in sentence,
Ageyn folk absent, thouh ther be non offence.

All is not golde that outward shewith bright.

Harde to likke hony out of a marbil stoon,
For ther is nouthir licour nor moisture.

Odyous of olde been comparisonis.

Also Johnn Lydgate
Wryteth after an hyer rate;
It is dyffuse to fynde
The sentence of his mynde,
Yet wryteth he in his kynd,
No man that can amend
Those maters that he hath pende;
Yet some men fynde a faute,
And say he wryteth too haute.

For love is mor than gold or gret richesse;
Gold faileth ofte; love wol abyde.

There is no rose
Spryngyng in gardeyns, but ther be sum thorn.

A wikked tonge wol alway deme amis.

In images of horror, and in a certain terrible greatness, our author comes far behind Chaucer. Whether they were not suited to the genius or the temper of Lydgate, I do not determine; but it is certain that, though they naturally seemed to present themselves, he has almost generally chose to avoid them: yet is there frequently a stiller kind of majesty both in his thought and expression, which makes one of his principal beauties.