Geoffrey Chaucer Quotes
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To keep demands as much skill as to win.
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Loke who that is most vertuous alway, Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay To do the gentil dedes that he can, And take him for the gretest gentilman.
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If gold ruste, what shall iren do?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.
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Ek gret effect men write in place lite; Th'entente is al, and nat the lettres space.
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Lat take a cat, and fostre him wel with milk, And tendre flesh, and make his couche of silk, And let him seen a mous go by the wal; Anon he weyveth milk, and flesh, and al, And every deyntee that is in that hous, Swich appetyt hath he to ete a mous.
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For tyme y-lost may not recovered be.
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Go, little booke! go, my little tragedie!
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The proverbe saith that many a smale maketh a grate.
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But manly set the world on sixe and sevene; And, if thou deye a martir, go to hevene.
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Til that the brighte sonne loste his hewe; For th'orisonte hath reft the sonne his lyght; This is as muche to seye as it was nyght!
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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.
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Forbid us something, and that thing we desire.
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A yokel mind loves stories from of old, Being the kind it can repeat and hold.
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I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose.
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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.
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So was hir jolly whistel wel y-wette.
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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.
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How potent is the fancy! People are so impressionable, they can die of imagination.
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One eare it heard, at the other out it went.
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This flour of wifly patience.
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One cannot be avenged for every wrong; according to the occasion, everyone who knows how, must use temperance.
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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.
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For I have seyn of a ful misty morwe Folowen ful ofte a myrie someris day.
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And then the wren gan scippen and to daunce.
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Trouthe is the hyest thyng that man may kepe.
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