Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet and author. Widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages, he is best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the “father of English literature”, or, alternatively, the “father of English poetry”. These Geoffrey Chaucer quotes will motivate you.
Best Geoffrey Chaucer Quotes
- “What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “The devil can only destroy those who are already on their way to damnation.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “All good things must come to an end.” ~ 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
- “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
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“The guilty think all talk is of themselves.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Time and tide wait for no man.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Many a true word is spoken in jest” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “In general, women desire to rule over their husbands and lovers, to be the authority above them.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.” ~ 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
- “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
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“It is nought good a sleeping hound to wake.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “And so it is in politics, dear brother, Each for himself alone, there is no other.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Women naturally desire the same six things as I; they want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous with money, obedient to the wife, and lively in bed.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “We little know the things for which we pray.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Mercy surpasses justice.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
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“How potent is the fancy! People are so impressionable, they can die of imagination.” ~ Geoffrey 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
- “Many small make a great.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “What’s said is said and goes upon its way Like it or not, repent it as you may.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Patience is a conquering virtue.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “. . . 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. . . .” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Great peace is found in little busy-ness.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
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“Death is the end of every worldly pain.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “The fields have eyes, and the woods have ears.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Strike while the iron is hot.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Woe to the cook whose sauce has no sting.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “If we’re not foolish young, were foolish old.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Full wise is he that can himself knowe.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
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“There’s never a new fashion but it’s old.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Habit maketh no monk, ne wearing of gilt spurs maketh no knight.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “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
- “There was the murdered corpse, in covert laid,
And violent death in thousand shapes displayed;
The city to the soldier’s rage resigned;
Successless wars, and poverty behind;
Ships burnt in fight, or forced on rocky shores,
And the rash hunter strangled by the boars;
The newborn babe by nurses overlaid;
And the cook caught within the raging fire he made.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer -
“Look up on high, and thank the God of all.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “If gold rusts, what then can iron do?” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “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.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “I wol yow telle, as was me taught also,
The foure spirites and the bodies sevene,
By ordre, as ofte I herde my lord hem nevene.
The firste spirit quiksilver called is,
The second orpiment, the thridde, ywis,
Sal armoniak, and the firthe brimstoon.
The bodies sevene eek, lo! hem heer anoon:
Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe,
Mars yron, Mercurie quiksilver we clepe,
Saturnus leed, and Jupiter is tin,
And Venus coper, by my fader kin!” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer -
“In the stars is written the death of every man.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “With empty hand no man can lure a hawk.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “For tyme ylost may nought recovered be.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Men love newfangleness.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Forbid us something, and that thing we desire.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “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.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Trouthe is the hyest thyng that man may kepe.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
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“He is gentle that doeth gentle deeds.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “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
- “And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “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.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
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“But Christ’s lore and his apostles twelve,He taught and first he followed it himself.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “And as for me, thogh that I can but lyte, On bakes for to rede I me delyte, And to hem yeve 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 hit be seldom, on the holyday; Save, certeynly, when that the month of May Is comen, and that I here the foules singe, And that the floures ginnen for to springe, Farwel my book and my devocion.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Make a virtue of necessity.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “For out of old fields, as men saith, Cometh all this new corn from year to year; And out of old books, in good faith, Cometh all this new science that men learn.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “There’s no workman, whatsoever he be, That may both work well and hastily.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “And she was fair as is the rose in May.” ~ 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
- “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.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
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“Thou shalt make castels thanne in Spayne And dreme of joye, all but in vayne.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “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.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “One cannot be avenged for every wrong; according to the occasion, everyone who knows how, must use temperance.” ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
- “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote.” ~ 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
