Geoffrey Chaucer Quotes - Page 2

Woe to the cook whose sauce has no sting.

Patience is a conquering virtue. The learned say that, if it not desert you, It vanquishes what force can never reach; Why answer back at every angry speech? No, learn forbearance or, I'll tell you what, You will be taught it, whether you will or not.

And so it is in politics, dear brother, Each for himself alone, there is no other.

Death is the end of every worldly pain.

The fields have eyes, and the woods have ears.

Habit maketh no monk, ne wearing of gilt spurs maketh no knight.

Remember in the forms of speech comes change Within a thousand years, and words that then Were well esteemed, seem foolish now and strange; And yet they spake them so, time and again, And thrived in love as well as any men; And so to win their loves in sundry days, In sundry lands there are as many ways.

In April the sweet showers fall And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all The veins are bathed in liquor of such power As brings about the engendering of the flower.

In general, women desire to rule over their husbands and lovers, to be the authority above them.

One shouldn't be too inquisitive in life Either about God's secrets or one's wife.

And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach

If were not foolish young, were foolish old.

How potent is the fancy! People are so impressionable, they can die of imagination.

There's no workman, whatsoever he be, That may both work well and hastily.

The handsome gifts that fate and nature lend us Most often are the very ones that end us.

Who looks at me, beholdeth sorrows all, All pain, all torture, woe and all distress; I have no need on other harms to call, As anguish, languor, cruel bitterness, Discomfort, dread, and madness more and less; Methinks from heaven above the tears must rain In pity for my harsh and cruel pain.

. . . if gold rust, what then will iron do?/ For if a priest be foul in whom we trust/ No wonder that a common man should rust. . . .

For tyme ylost may nought recovered be.

I wol yow telle, as was me taught also, The foure spirites and the bodies sevene, By ordre, as ofte I herde my lord hem nevene. The firste spirit quiksilver called is, The second orpiment, the thridde, ywis, Sal armoniak, and the firthe brimstoon. The bodies sevene eek, lo! hem heer anoon: Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe, Mars yron, Mercurie quiksilver we clepe, Saturnus leed, and Jupiter is tin, And Venus coper, by my fader kin!

The latter end of joy is woe.

Make a virtue of necessity.

Look up on high, and thank the God of all.

Certain, when I was born, so long ago, Death drew the tap of life and let it flow; And ever since the tap has done its task, And now there's little but an empty cask.

There's never a new fashion but it's old.

We little know the things for which we pray.