Quotes & Sayings About Chaucer

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. — Geoffrey Chaucer

This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo, And we been pilgrymes, passynge to and fro. — Geoffrey Chaucer

For many a pasty have you robbed of blood, And many a Jack of Dover have you sold That has been heated twice and twice grown cold. From many a pilgrim have you had Christ's curse, For of your parsley they yet fare the worse, Which they have eaten with your stubble goose; For in your shop full many a fly is loose. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Though Plente that is goddesse of rychesses hielde adoun with ful horn, and withdraweth nat hir hand, as many richesses as the see torneth upward sandes whan it is moeved with ravysshynge blastes, or elles as manye rychesses as ther schynen bryghte sterres in hevene on the sterry nyghtes; yit, for al that, mankende nolde nat cese to wepe wrecchide pleyntes. And al be it so that God resceyveth gladly hir preiers, and yyveth hem, as fool-large, moche gold, and apparayleth coveytous folk with noble or cleer honours; yit semeth hem haven igeten nothyng, but alwey hir cruel ravyne, devourynge al that they han geten, scheweth othere gapynges (that is to seyn, gapyn and desiren yit after mo rychesses.) What brydles myghte withholden to any certeyn ende the disordene covetise of men, whan evere the rather that it fletith in large yiftes, the more ay brenneth in hem the thurst of havynge? Certes he that qwakynge and dredful weneth hymselven nedy, he ne lyveth nevermo ryche. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales was expected to clock in at anywhere between 100 and 120 chapters. Unfortunately, the dude only managed to finish 24 tales before he suffered an insurmountable and permanent state of writer's block commonly known as death. — Jacopo Della Quercia

One flesh they are; and one flesh, so I'd guess,
Has but one heart, come grief or happiness. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Loke who that is most vertuous alway, Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay To do the gentil dedes that he can, And take him for the gretest gentilman. — Geoffrey Chaucer

By nature, men love newfangledness. — Geoffrey Chaucer

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. — Geoffrey Chaucer

3440 An hole he fond3440, ful lowe upon a bord, Theras3441 the cat was wont in for to crepe, And at that hole he looked in ful depe3442, And atte laste he hadde of him a sighte. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Men sholde nat knowe of Goddes pryvetee Ye, blessed be alwey, a lewed man That noght but oonly his believe kan! So ferde another clerk with astromye, He walked in the feelds, for to prye Upon the sterres, what ther sholde bifalle, Til he was in a marle-pit yfalle. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Nowhere in Chaucer do we find what can be called a radically allegorical poem. — C.S. Lewis

His spirit chaunged house and wente ther,
As I cam nevere, I kan nat tellen wher. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Becca had gone through many, many years of schooling in her life. She'd spent more hours in libraries than she could begin to calculate. Yet this was the first time she'd ever made out in one. As he claimed her mouth for the second time against the volumes of Chaucer, she realized all she'd missed out on in the past. — Cat Johnson

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

we know little of the things for which we pray — Geoffrey Chaucer

For oute of olde feldys, as men sey,
Comyth al this newe corn from yer to yere;
And out of olde bokis, in good fey,
Comyth al this newe science that men lere. — Geoffrey Chaucer

The life so short, the crafts so long to learn. — Geoffrey Chaucer

The inhabitants of England in the age of Chaucer commonly used an expression, to be in hide and hair, meaning to be lost or beyond discovery. But then it disappears from the written record for four hundred years before resurfacing, suddenly and unexpectedly, in America in 1857 as neither hide nor hair. It is dearly unlikely that the phrase went into a linguistic coma for four centuries. So who was quietly preserving it for four hundred years, and why did it so abruptly return to prominence in the sixth decade of the nineteenth century in a country two thousand miles away? — Bill Bryson

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. — Geoffrey Chaucer

The Italian prose tale had begun to exercise that influence as early as Chaucer's time: but circumstances and atmosphere were as yet unfavourable for its growth. — George Saintsbury

Suddenly Adam (Upton) hated death just as much as he hated life, and now he had absolutely no idea how to unsolve that equation.

-- From my upcoming novel "Streaks of Blue: How the Angels of Newtown Inspired One Girl to Save Her School. — Jack Chaucer

That field hath eyen, and the wood hath ears. — Geoffrey Chaucer

First impressions of mediaeval life are usually coloured by the courtly romances of Malory and his later refiners. Chaucer brings us down to reality, but his people belong to a prosperous middle-class world, on holiday and in holiday mood. Piers Plowman stands alone as a revelation of the ignorance and misery of the lower classes, whose multiplied grievances came to a head in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. — William Langland

Hyt is not al golde that glareth. — Geoffrey Chaucer

High on a stag the Goddess held her seat,
And there were little hounds about her feet;
Below her feet there was a sickle moon,
Waxing it seemed, but would be waning soon.
Her statue bore a mantle of bright green,
Her hand a bow with arrows cased and keen;
Her eyes were lowered, gazing as she rode
Down to where Pluto has his dark abode. — Geoffrey Chaucer

The cat would eat fish but would not get her feet wet. — Geoffrey Chaucer

What makes Geoffrey Chaucer such compelling reading is his creation of a riveting conversation between the ideal and the everyday. — John Mark Reynolds

In one particular chapter in Ulysses, James Joyce imitates every major writing style that's been used by English and American writers over the last 700 years - starting with Beowulf and Chaucer and working his way up through the Renaissance, the Victorian era and on into the 20th century. — Frederick Lenz

If no love is, O God, what fele I so? And if love is, what thing and which is he? If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo? If it be wikke, a wonder thynketh me — Geoffrey Chaucer

What a contrast between the stern and desolate poetry of Ossian, and that of Chaucer, and even of Shakespeare and Milton, much more of Dryden, and Pope, and Gray! Our summer of English poetry, like the Greek and Latin before it, seems well advanced towards its fall, and laden with the fruit and foliage of the season, with bright autumnal tints, but soon the winter will scatter its myriad clustering and shading leaves, and leave only a few desolate and fibrous boughs to sustain the snow and rime, and creak in the blasts of age. — Henry David Thoreau

And after winter folweth grene May. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Upon his arm he bare a gay bracer*, *small shield And by his side a sword and a buckler, And on that other side a gay daggere, Harnessed well, and sharp as point of spear: — Geoffrey Chaucer

Men may the wise atrenne, and naught atrede. — Geoffrey Chaucer

How do you tell your mom you're following your dream when it's the one that warned you to befriend a psychotic boy before he shoots up your school?
-- from the upcoming "Streaks of Blue — Jack Chaucer

Drunkenness is the very sepulcher
Of man's wit and his discretion. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Three years went by in happiness and health; He bore himself so well in peace and war That there was no one Theseus valued more. — Geoffrey Chaucer

the guilty think all talk is of themselves. — Geoffrey Chaucer

For thus men seyth, That on thenketh the beere,
But al another thenketh his ledere. — Geoffrey Chaucer

I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke, That hath but on hole for to sterten to. — Geoffrey Chaucer

This Nicholas anon leet fle a fart
As greet as it had been a thonder-dent,
That with the strook he was almoost yblent;
And he was redy with his iren hoot,
And Nicholas amydde the ers he smoot.
Of gooth the skyn an hande-brede aboute,
The hoote kultour brende so his toute,
And for the smert he wende for to dye. — Geoffrey Chaucer

in describing the various writers of his idolatry he more than once lets fall a phrase that could equally apply to himself. 'To read Spenser,' he says, 'is to grow in mental health.' What he values in Addison is his 'open-mindedness.' The moments of despair chronicled in Scott's diary cannot, he claims, counterpoise 'that ease and good temper, that fine masculine cheerfulness' suffused through the best of the Waverly novels. Most of all it was the chiaroscuro of what Chaucer called 'earnest' and 'game' that attracted him. He found it eminently in the poetry of Dunbar, that late-medieval Scottish maker who wrote the greatest religious poetry and the earthiest satire in the language — Jocelyn Gibb

And as for me, though that I konne but lyte,
On bokes for to rede I me delyte,
And to hem yive I feyth and ful credence,
And in myn herte have hem in reverence
So hertely, that ther is game noon
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon,
But yt be seldom on the holyday,
Save, certeynly, whan that the month of May
Is comen, and that I here the foules synge,
And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge,
Farewel my bok and my devocioun! — Geoffrey Chaucer

Take a cat, nourish it well with milk and tender meat, make it a couch of silk ... — Geoffrey Chaucer

One cannot be avenged for every wrong; according to the occasion, everyone who knows how, must use temperance. — Geoffrey Chaucer

We admire Chaucer for his sturdy English wit ... But though it is full of good sense and humanity, it is not transcendent poetry.For picturesque description of persons it is, perhaps, without a parallel in English poetry; yet it is essentially humorous, as the loftiest genius never is. — Henry David Thoreau

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. — Geoffrey Chaucer

all that glitters is not gold, — Geoffrey Chaucer

If love be good, from whence cometh my woe? — Geoffrey Chaucer

If you're a real student of literature, and I mean the good stuff - Chaucer, Shakespeare - you figure out that only souls who truly reflect each other make good love matches. — Andrea Cremer

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

Til that the brighte sonne loste his hewe; For th'orisonte hath reft the sonne his lyght; This is as muche to seye as it was nyght! — Geoffrey Chaucer

The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything. — William Hazlitt

The range and variety of Chaucer's English did much to establish English as a national language. Chaucer also contributed much to the formation of a standard English based on the dialect of the East Midlands region which was basically the dialect of London which Chaucer himself spoke. Indeed, by the end of the fourteenth century the educated language of London, bolstered by the economic power of London itself, was beginning to become the standard form of written language throughout the country, although the process was not to be completed for several centuries. The cultural, commercial, administrative and intellectual importance of the East Midlands (one of the two main universities, Cambridge, was also in this region), the agricultural richness of the region and the presence of major cities, Norwich and London, contributed much to the increasing standardisation of the dialect. — Ronald Carter

Sheriff Gibbs, the vocabulary of the English language is the wonder of the whole world. Chaucer spoke it and Shakespeare and Winston Churchill. With such a precedent, you could possibly make better use of it," said Mrs. Perley.
"Huh," said Sheriff Gibbs — Gary D. Schmidt

In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these things. That isn't the way people write.'
I believe this as strongly now as I did then. Most of what is best in writing isn't done deliberately. — Madeleine L'Engle

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. — Geoffrey Chaucer

'My lige lady, generally,' quod he, 'Wommen desyren to have sovereyntee As well over hir housbond as hir love.' — Geoffrey Chaucer

For if a priest be foul, on whom we trust,
No wonder is a common man should rust
-The Prologue of Chaucers Canterbury Tales- — Geoffrey Chaucer

At the ches with me she (Fortune) gan to pleye; With her false draughts (pieces) dyvers/She staal on me, and took away my fers. And when I sawgh my fers awaye, Allas! I kouthe no lenger playe. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in switch licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So Priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke — Geoffrey Chaucer

A kind of wonder takes Chaucer over as he pants up Fleet Street and past the walled orchards and gardens of this lovely riverside suburb for princes of kingdom and Church.
This isn't mob action, not really, even if there were men back there shouting that they were off to break into Newgate Jail and set the prisoners free.
It's something else. Something he's never seen, or imagined.
These men don't loot. They aren't trying to get rich, or even just get fed. They're not remotely interested in picking up a few unconsidered trifles from the palaces they're passing, however lovely the houses are, however manicured the gardens.
They're here to destroy. And they know their targets. — Vanora Bennett

He who accepts his poverty unhurt I'd say is rich although he lacked a shirt. But truly poor are they who whine and fret and covet what they cannot hope to get. — Geoffrey Chaucer

There may be little room for the display of this supreme qualification in the retail book business, but there is room for some. Be enterprising. Get good people about you. Make your shop windows and your shops attractive. The fact that so many young men and women enter the teaching profession shows that there are still some people willing to scrape along on comparatively little money for the pleasure of following an occupation in which they delight. It is as true to-day as it was in Chaucer's time that there is a class of men who "gladly learn and gladly teach," and our college trustees and overseers and rich alumni take advantage of this and expect them to live on wages which an expert chauffeur would regard as insufficient. Any bookshop worthy of survival can offer inducements at least as great as the average school or college. Under pleasant conditions you will meet pleasant people, for the most part, whom you can teach and form whom you may learn something. — A. Edward Newton

There's never a new fashion but it's old. — Geoffrey Chaucer

For in their hearts doth Nature stir them so Then people long on pilgrimage to go And palmers to be seeking foreign strands To distant shrines renowned in sundry lands. — Geoffrey Chaucer

He that loveth God will do diligence to please God by his works, and abandon himself, with all his might, well for to do. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Everybody wants to go to the Super Bowl. Nobody wants to run laps. — Geoffrey Chaucer

For thogh we slepe, or wake, or rome, or ryde, Ay fleeth the tyme; it nyl no man abyde. — Geoffrey Chaucer

You are the cause by which I die. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Love will not be constrain'd by mastery.
When mast'ry comes, the god of love anon
Beateth his wings, and, farewell, he is gone.
Love is a thing as any spirit free. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Purity in body and heart
May please some
as for me, I make no boast.
For, as you know, no master of a household
Has all of his utensils made of gold;
Some are wood, and yet they are of use. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Here Greek and Roman find themselves alive along these crowded shelves; and Shakespeare treads again his stage, and Chaucer paints anew his age. — John Greenleaf Whittier

We're like two dogs in battle on their own;
They fought all day but neither got the bone,
There came a kite above them, nothing loth,
And while they fought he took it from them both."
From Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale — Geoffrey Chaucer

If were not foolish young, were foolish old. — Geoffrey Chaucer

I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose. — Geoffrey Chaucer

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

Eke wonder last but nine deies never in toun. — Geoffrey Chaucer

The proverbe saith that many a smale maketh a grate. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Time lost, as men may see, For nothing may recovered be. — Geoffrey Chaucer

And when a beest is deed, he hath no peyne; But man after his deeth moot wepe and pleyne. — Geoffrey Chaucer

I can imagine the writers of China, England and France, crippled and unsure of themselves when they feel that the ghosts of Confucius, Mencius, Chaucer and Shakespeare and Victor Hugo are looking over their shoulders. — F. Sionil Jose

Lat take a cat, and fostre him wel with milk, And tendre flesh, and make his couche of silk, And let him seen a mous go by the wal; Anon he weyveth milk, and flesh, and al, And every deyntee that is in that hous, Swich appetyt hath he to ete a mous. — Geoffrey Chaucer

He is gentle that doeth gentle deeds. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Lo, which a greet thing is affeccioun!
Men may die of imaginacioun,
So depe may impressioun be take. — Geoffrey Chaucer

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. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Of alle the floures in the mede, Than love I most these floures whyte and rede, Swiche as men callen daysies in our toun ... Til that myn herte dye ... That wel by reson men hit calle may The 'dayesye' or elles the 'ye of day,' The emperice and flour of floures alle. I pray to god that faire mot she falle, And alle that loven floures, for hir sake! — Geoffrey Chaucer

What would Chaucer have written about if men were perfect? — Pete Hamill

Alas, alas, that ever love was sin! I ever followed natural inclination Under the power of my constellation And was unable to deny, in truth, My chamber of Venus to a likely youth. — Geoffrey Chaucer

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

I can read Middle English stories, Geoffrey Chaucer or Sir Thomas Malory, but once I start moving in the direction of contemporary fantasy, my mind begins to take over. — David Eddings

No poem, not even Shakespeare or Milton or Chaucer, is ever strong enough to totally exclude every crucial precursor text or poem. — Harold Bloom

If a man really loves a woman, of course he wouldn't marry her for the world if he were not quite sure that he was the best person she could possibly marry. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Expierience treacherous. Judgement difficult. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Mordre wol out, that se we day by day. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Certes, they been lye to hounds, for an hound when he cometh by the roses, or by other bushes, though he may nat pisse, yet wole he heve up his leg and make a countenance to pisse. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Abstinence is approved of God. — Geoffrey Chaucer

I would find a way to save souls while eradicating demons from this world. I'd find a way to save my own soul. I just had to.
Emily Chaucer.
Demon executioner.
Human savior.
I could only hope. — Ketley Allison

First he wrought, and afterwards he taught. — Geoffrey Chaucer

In the stars is written the death of every man. — Geoffrey Chaucer