Quotes & Sayings About Love Chaucer

Who shall give a lover any law?' Love is a greater law, by my troth, than any law written by mortal man. — Geoffrey Chaucer

By nature, men love newfangledness. — Geoffrey Chaucer

The life so brief, the art so long in the learning, the attempt so hard, the conquest so sharp, the fearful joy that ever slips away so quickly - by all this I mean love, which so sorely astounds my feeling with its wondrous operation, that when I think upon it I scarce know whether I wake or sleep. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
With-inne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do. — Geoffrey Chaucer

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

He hath considered shortly, in a clause1763, The trespas 1764 of hem bothe, and eek the cause, 1765 And althogh that his ire hir gilt accused, Yet in his resoun he hem bothe excused, As thus: he thoghte wel that every man Wol helpe himself in love if that he kan, And eek delivere himself out of prisoun; — Geoffrey Chaucer

And if love is, what thing and which is he? If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo? — Geoffrey Chaucer

For God's love, take things patiently, have sense, Think! We are prisoners and shall always be. Fortune has given us this adversity, Some wicked planetary dispensation, Some Saturn's trick or evil constellation Has given us this, and Heaven, though we had sworn The contrary, so stood when we were born. We must endure it, that's the long and short. — Geoffrey Chaucer

In love there is but little rest. — Geoffrey Chaucer

A yokel mind loves stories from of old, Being the kind it can repeat and hold. — Geoffrey Chaucer

For there is one thing I can safely say: that those bound by love must obey each other if they are to keep company long. Love will not be constrained by mastery; when mastery comes, the God of love at once beats his wings, and farewell he is gone. Love is a thing as free as any spirit; women naturally desire liberty, and not to be constrained like slaves; and so do men, if I shall tell the truth. — Geoffrey Chaucer

A love grown old is not the love once new. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Men love newfangleness. — Geoffrey Chaucer

This posture of skepticism towards the classics displays a profound misjudg- ment. For the great works of Western culture are remarkable for the dis- tance that they maintained from the norms and orthodoxies that gave birth to them. Only a very shallow reading of Chaucer or Shakespeare would see those writers as endorsing the societies in which they lived, or would over- look the far more important fact that their works hold mankind to the light of moral judgment, and examine, with all the love and all the pity that it calls for, the frailty of human nature. It is precisely the aspiration towards universal truth, towards a God's-eye perspective on the human condition, that is the hallmark of Western culture. — Theodore Dalrymple

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

That of all the floures in the mede, Thanne love I most these floures white and rede, Suche as men callen daysyes in her toune. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Havna ye heard how the ancient Greeks associated sparrows with Aphrodite, the goddess of love?"...
"Och, 'tis no story. 'Tis the truth I give: When sparrows mated, it was due to their abandoned nature." His head inclined so he could whisper a kiss to her neck, sending shivers from her shoulders to the soles of her feet. "Even Chaucer and Shakespeare wrote about the sparrow's lustful conduct. — Vonnie Davis

I will, however, establish that success in love, as in all other aspects of life, belongs, as a rule, to the persistent and fiber man. Chaucer had reason to make the Old Bath confess: 'The truth is, more or less, we always succumb to attention and perseverance'. — Frank Harris

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. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Then you compared a woman's love to Hell,
To barren land where water will not dwell,
And you compared it to a quenchless fire,
The more it burns the more is its desire
To burn up everything that burnt can be.
You say that just as worms destroy a tree
A wife destroys her husband and contrives,
As husbands know, the ruin of their lives. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Well is it said that neither love nor power Admit a rival, even for an hour. — Geoffrey Chaucer

He loved chivalrye Trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisye. — 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

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

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

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