Top 200 Geoffrey Chaucer Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 2 of 5

51. “Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

52. “And so it is in politics, dear brother, Each for himself alone, there is no other.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

53. “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

54. “A yokel mind loves stories from of old, Being the kind it can repeat and hold.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

55. “The cat would eat fish but would not get her feet wet.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

56. “Who then may trust the dice, at Fortune’s throw?”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

57. “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

58. “I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

59. “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

60. “How potent is the fancy! People are so impressionable, they can die of imagination.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

61. “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

62. “Well did he know the taverns in every town, and every hosteller and bar-maid, far better than he knew any leper or beggar.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

63. “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

64. “One shouldn’t be too inquisitive in life Either about God’s secrets or one’s wife.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

65. “Youth may outrun the old, but not outwit.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

66. “What’s said is said and goes upon its way Like it or not, repent it as you may.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

67. “If you are poor your very brother hates you And all your friends avoid you, sad to say.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

68. “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

69. “Hard is the heart that loveth nought In May.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

70. “He kept his tippet stuffed with pins for curls, And pocket-knives, to give to pretty girls.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

71. “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

72. “Filth and old age, I’m sure you will agree, are powerful wardens upon chastity.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

73. “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.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

74. “And then the wren gan scippen and to daunce.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

75. “The smylere with the knyf under the cloke.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

76. “I gave my whole heart up, for him to hold.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

77. “Habit maketh no monk, ne wearing of gilt spurs maketh no knight.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

78. “If were not foolish young, were foolish old.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

79. “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

80. “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

81. “Mordre wol out, that se we day by day.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

82. “But manly set the world on sixe and sevene; And, if thou deye a martir, go to hevene.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

83. “And after winter folweth grene May.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

84. “Well is it said that neither love nor power Admit a rival, even for an hour.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

85. “Who shall give a lover any law?’ Love is a greater law, by my troth, than any law written by mortal man.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

86. “For I have seyn of a ful misty morwe Folowen ful ofte a myrie someris day.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

87. “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

88. “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.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

89. “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.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

90. “One flesh they are; and one flesh, so I’d guess, Has but one heart, come grief or happiness.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

91. “Of harmes two the lesse is for to cheese.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

92. “Pitee renneth soone in gentil herte.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

93. “Shepherds too soft who let their duty sleep, Encourage wolves to tear the lambs and sleep.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

94. “Mercy surpasses justice.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

95. “Ther is no newe gyse that it nas old.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

96. “This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo, And we been pilgrymes, passynge to and fro.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

97. “Ek gret effect men write in place lite; Th’entente is al, and nat the lettres space.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

98. “My house is small, but you are learned men And by your arguments can make a place Twenty foot broad as infinite as space.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

99. “The handsome gifts that fate and nature lend us Most often are the very ones that end us.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer

100. “Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Expierience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”

— Geoffrey Chaucer