Top 168 Quotes & Sayings by Geoffrey Chaucer

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

Last updated on December 21, 2024.

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament.

English - Poet | 1343 - October 25, 1400

Source: Wikipedia

There's no workman, whatsoever he be, That may both work well and hastily.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Women desire six things: They want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous, obedient to wife, and lively in bed.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Murder will out, this my conclusion.

Geoffrey Chaucer

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Geoffrey Chaucer

The guilty think all talk is of themselves.

Geoffrey Chaucer

First he wrought, and afterward he taught.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Time and tide wait for no man.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Filth and old age, I'm sure you will agree, are powerful wardens upon chastity.

Geoffrey Chaucer

He was as fresh as is the month of May.

Geoffrey Chaucer

And she was fair as is the rose in May.

Geoffrey Chaucer

By nature, men love newfangledness.

Geoffrey Chaucer

People can die of mere imagination.

Geoffrey Chaucer

The life so short, the crafts so long to learn.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Nowhere so busy a man as he than he, and yet he seemed busier than he was.

Geoffrey Chaucer

There's never a new fashion but it's old.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Whoso will pray, he must fast and be clean, And fat his soul, and make his body lean.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Love is blind.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Forbid us something, and that thing we desire.

Geoffrey Chaucer

We know little of the things for which we pray.

Geoffrey Chaucer

We little know the things for which we pray.

Geoffrey Chaucer

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

Geoffrey Chaucer

I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose.

Geoffrey Chaucer

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

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

The devil can only destroy those who are already on their way to damnation.

Geoffrey Chaucer

The fields have eyes, and the woods have ears.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Many small make a great.

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

If were not foolish young, were foolish old.

Geoffrey Chaucer

It is nought good a sleping hound to wake.

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

If gold rusts, what then can iron do?

Geoffrey Chaucer

Mercy surpasses justice.

Geoffrey Chaucer

With empty hand no man can lure a hawk.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Great peace is found in little busy-ness.

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

Strike while the iron is hot.

Geoffrey Chaucer

All good things must come to an end.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Look up on high, and thank the God of all.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Death is the end of every worldly pain.

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

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

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

Full wise is he that can himselven knowe.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Woe to the cook whose sauce has no sting.

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

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

For tyme ylost may nought recovered be.

Geoffrey Chaucer

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

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

Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Many a true word is spoken in jest

Geoffrey Chaucer

In the stars is written the death of every man.

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

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

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

Patience is a conquering virtue.

Geoffrey Chaucer

What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.

Geoffrey Chaucer

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.

Geoffrey Chaucer

In general, women desire to rule over their husbands and lovers, to be the authority above them.

Geoffrey Chaucer