Geoffrey Chaucer
Every honest miller has a golden thumb.Collection: Gold
Death is the end of every worldly pain.Collection: Death
Woe to the cook whose sauce has no sting.Collection: Food
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.Collection: Patience
And so it is in politics, dear brother, Each for himself alone, there is no other.Collection: Brother
The handsome gifts that fate and nature lend us Most often are the very ones that end us.Collection: Fate
The fields have eyes, and the woods have ears.Collection: Eye
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.Collection: Winning
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.Collection: Sweet
Habit maketh no monk, ne wearing of gilt spurs maketh no knight.Collection: Knights
If were not foolish young, were foolish old.Collection: Foolish
Full wise is he that can himselven knowe.Collection: Wise
How potent is the fancy! People are so impressionable, they can die of imagination.Collection: People
. . . 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. . . .Collection: Men
In general, women desire to rule over their husbands and lovers, to be the authority above them.Collection: Husband
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.Collection: Pain
There's never a new fashion but it's old.Collection: Fashion
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.Collection: Death
For tyme ylost may nought recovered be.Collection: Time
We little know the things for which we pray.Collection: Prayer
This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo, And we been pilgrymes, passynge to and fro.Collection: World
If gold rusts, what then can iron do?Collection: Iron
There's no workman, whatsoever he be, That may both work well and hastily.Collection: Literature
And then the wren gan scippen and to daunce.Collection: Wrens
The cat would eat fish but would not get her feet wet.Collection: Wise
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.Collection: Food
For I have seyn of a ful misty morwe Folowen ful ofte a myrie someris day.Collection: Misty
That field hath eyen, and the wood hath ears.Collection: Walls Have Ears
The gretteste clerkes been noght wisest men.Collection: Men
For of fortunes sharp adversitee The worst kynde of infortune is this, A man to han ben in prosperitee, And it remembren, whan it passed is.Collection: Men
He that loveth God will do diligence to please God by his works, and abandon himself, with all his might, well for to do.Collection: Might
And when a beest is deed, he hath no peyne; But man after his deeth moot wepe and pleyne.Collection: Men
One eare it heard, at the other out it went.Collection: Hearing
'My lige lady, generally,' quod he, 'Wommen desyren to have sovereyntee As well over hir housbond as hir love.'Collection: Love
Of harmes two the lesse is for to cheese.Collection: Two
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.Collection: Rose
Soun is noght but air ybroken, And every speche that is spoken, Loud or privee, foul or fair, In his substaunce is but air; For as flaumbe is but lighted smoke, Right so soun is air ybroke.Collection: Air
Time lost, as men may see, For nothing may recovered be.Collection: Men
Make a virtue of necessity.Collection: Humility
By God, if women had written stories, As clerks had within here oratories, They would have written of men more wickedness Than all the mark of Adam may redress.Collection: Men
I gave my whole heart up, for him to hold.Collection: Heart
A whetstone is no carving instrument, And yet it maketh sharp the carving tool; And if you see my efforts wrongly spent, Eschew that course and learn out of my school; For thus the wise may profit by the fool, And edge his wit, and grow more keen and wary, For wisdom shines opposed to its contrary.Collection: Wise
But manly set the world on sixe and sevene; And, if thou deye a martir, go to hevene.Collection: World