Geoffrey Chaucer
One cannot scold or complain at every word. Learn to endure patiently, or else, as I live and breathe, you shall learn it whether you want or not.Collection: Complaining
If love be good, from whence cometh my woe?Collection: Love
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.Collection: Heart
Take a cat, nourish it well with milk and tender meat, make it a couch of silk.Collection: Cat
First he wrought, and afterwards he taught.Collection: Teaching
In love there is but little rest.Collection: Littles
Go, little booke! go, my little tragedie!Collection: Littles
Fo lo, the gentil kind of the lioun! For when a flye offendeth him or byteth, He with his tayl awey the flye smyteth Al esily, for, of his genterye, Him deyneth net to wreke him on a flye, As cloth a curre or elles another beste.Collection: Kindness
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.Collection: Adversity
Harde is his heart that loveth nought In May.Collection: Heart
Yet do not miss the moral, my good men. For Saint Paul says that all that’s written well Is written down some useful truth to tell. Then take the wheat and let the chaff lie still.Collection: Lying
A yokel mind loves stories from of old, Being the kind it can repeat and hold.Collection: Mind Love
Ther nis no werkman, whatsoevere he be, That may bothe werke wel and hastily.Collection: Work
With emptie hands men may no haukes lure.Collection: Men
For thogh we slepe, or wake, or rome, or ryde, Ay fleeth the tyme; it nyl no man abyde.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Men
I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke, That hath but on hole for to sterten to.Collection: Holes
But all thing which that shineth as the gold Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told.Collection: Gold
Fie on possession, But if a man be vertuous withal.Collection: Men
For tyme y-lost may not recovered be.Collection: May
But al be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.Collection: Gold
Murder will out, this my conclusion.Collection: Literature
I am right sorry for your heavinesse.Collection: Sorry
And brought of mighty ale a large quart.Collection: Ale
But, Lord Crist! whan that it remembreth me Upon my yowthe, and on my jolitee, It tickleth me aboute myn herte roote. Unto this day it dooth myn herte boote That I have had my world as in my tyme. But age, alias! that al wole envenyme, Hath me biraft my beautee and my pith. Lat go, farewel! the devel go therwith! The flour is goon, ther is namoore to telle; The bren, as I best kan, now most I selle.Collection: Age
Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken.Collection: Fire
If gold ruste, what shall iren do?Collection: Gold
Whoso will pray, he must fast and be clean, And fat his soul, and make his body lean.Collection: Soul
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 meCollection: Love Is
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.Collection: Queens
Right as an aspen lefe she gan to quake.Collection: Aspens
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.Collection: Believe
The proverbe saith that many a smale maketh a grate.Collection: Grate
Hyt is not al golde that glareth.Collection: Als
Who then may trust the dice, at Fortune's throw?Collection: Literature
Nature, the vicar of the Almighty Lord.Collection: Nature
For hym was levere have at his beddes heed Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophie, Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrie.Collection: Gay
So was hir jolly whistel wel y-wette.Collection: Jolly
This flour of wifly patience.Collection: Flour
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!Collection: Men
Ek gret effect men write in place lite; Th'entente is al, and nat the lettres space.Collection: Writing
Yblessed be god that I have wedded fyve! Welcome the sixte, whan that evere he shal.Collection: Welcome
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.Collection: Venus
Eke wonder last but nine deies never in toun.Collection: Nine