Marie de France Quotes

Man created God in his image: intolerant, sexist, homophobic and violent.

By men's words we know them.

The fool shouts loudly, thinking to impress the world.

For above all things Love means sweetness, and truth, and measure; yea, loyalty to the loved one and to your word. And because of this I dare not meddle with so high a matter.

You have to endure what you can't change.

Being too consumed in fear all the time will result in poor quality of life

Desire can blind us to the hazards of our enterprises.

Whoever has received knowledge and eloquence in speech from God should not be silent or secretive but demonstrate it willingly. When a great good is widely heard of, then, and only then, does it bloom, and when that good is praised by man, it has spread its blossoms.

If one of two lovers is loyal, and the other jealous and false, how may their friendship last, for Love is slain!

But sweetly and discreetly love passes from person to person, from heart to heart, or it is nothing worth.

We love what we should scorn if we were wiser.

There are divers men who make a great show of loyalty, and pretend to such discretion in the hidden things they hear, that at the end folk come to put faith in them.

Whoever believes in a man is very foolish.

For what the lover would, that would the beloved; what she would ask of him that should he go before to grant. Without accord such as this, love is but a bond and a constraint.

The rich are never threatened by the poor - they do not notice them.

I love no woman, for love is a serious business, not a jest.

Whoever wants to tell a variety of stories ought to have a variety of beginnings.

He who would tell divers tales must know how to vary the tune.

A bully is not reasonable - he is persuaded only by threats.

But Fortune, who never forgets her duty, turns her wheel suddenly.

Be sure that you speak with unfeigned lips.

Fairest and dearest, your wrath and anger are more heavy than I can bear; but learn that I cannot tell what you wish me to say without sinning against my honour too grievously.

Out of five hundred who speak glibly of love, not one can spell the first letter of his name.

The dead and past stories that I have told again in divers fashions, are not set down without authority.

In times gone by there lived a Count of Ponthieu, who loved chivalry and the pleasures of the world beyond measure, and moreover was a stout knight and a gallant gentleman