Geoffrey Chaucer was the first writer to use English language in his works. He was exalted for his work, ‘The Canterbury Tales’. Geoffrey is considered to be the ‘Father of English Literature’ and the first poet to be buried at the ‘Poets Coroner’ at Westminster Abbey. Besides being an astronomer, author and philosopher he also served as a bureaucrat, diplomat and courtier. ‘The Book of the Duchess’ was his first major work. His writings covered varied topics and through these he expressed his thoughts, which became popular as quotations and sayings. His later books like ‘The House of Fame’, 'Troilus and Criseyde', 'Parlement of Foules' and 'The Legend of Good Women' earned him recognition. He is believed to have died in October 1400, as no further furnished records were found. His writings, essays, sayings and quotes were a work of art. We have put together a collection of some of his notable quotes.
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.
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.
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.
But Christ's lore and his apostles twelve,
He taught and first he followed it himself.
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
All that glitters is not gold,
Geoffrey Chaucer
One flesh they are; and one flesh, so I'd guess,
Has but one heart, come grief or happiness.
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
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.
Geoffrey Chaucer
And once he had got really drunk on wine,
Then he would speak no language but Latin.
Geoffrey Chaucer
For if a priest be foul, on whom we trust,
No wonder is a common man should rust"
-The Prologue of Chaucers Canterbury Tales-
And high above, depicted in a tower,
Sat Conquest, robed in majesty and power,
Under a sword that swung above his head,
Sharp-edged and hanging by a subtle thread.
Geoffrey Chaucer
Youre tale anoyeth al this compaignye.
Swich talkyng is nat worth a boterflye,
Geoffrey Chaucer
The man who has no wife is no cuckold.
Geoffrey Chaucer
And if love is, what thing and which is he? If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo?
O woman’s counsel is so often cold! A woman’s counsel brought us first to woe, Made Adam out of Paradise to go Where he had been so merry, so well at ease.
Geoffrey Chaucer
Lo, which a greet thing is affeccioun!
Men may die of imaginacioun,
So depe may impressioun be take.
Geoffrey Chaucer
When that Aprille with his shoures sote.
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertue engendred is the flour.
Geoffrey Chaucer
By God," quod he, "for pleynly, at a word,
Thy drasty rymyng is nat worth a toord!
Geoffrey Chaucer
And shame it is, if that a priest take keep, To see a shitten shepherd and clean sheep:
Geoffrey Chaucer
Three years went by in happiness and health; He bore himself so well in peace and war That there was no one Theseus valued more.
