„No empty handed man can lure a bird“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book The Canterbury Tales
Source: The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer quotes
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Geoffrey Chaucer
Birthdate: 1343
Date of death: 25. October 1400
Other names: Джеффри Чосер
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. He was the first poet to be buried in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
While he achieved fame during his lifetime as an author, philosopher, and astronomer, composing a scientific treatise on the astrolabe for his ten-year-old son Lewis, Chaucer also maintained an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Among his many works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde. He is best known today for The Canterbury Tales.
Chaucer's work was crucial in legitimizing the literary use of the Middle English vernacular at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were French and Latin.
Works
The House of Fame
Geoffrey ChaucerQuotes Geoffrey Chaucer
„And of your herte up-casteth the visage
To thilke God that after his image
Yow made, and thynketh al nis but a faire
This world, that passeth sone as floures faire.“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book Troilus and Criseyde
Book 5, line 1835-1841
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
Context: O yonge fresshe folkes, he or she,
In which that love up-groweth with your age,
Repeyreth hoom fro worldly vanitee,
And of your herte up-casteth the visage
To thilke God that after his image
Yow made, and thynketh al nis but a faire
This world, that passeth sone as floures faire.
„people can die of mere imagination“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book The Canterbury Tales
Source: The Canterbury Tales
„If gold rusts, what then can iron do?“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book The Canterbury Tales
Source: The Canterbury Tales
„Men may the wise atrenne, and naught atrede.“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book Troilus and Criseyde
Source: Troilus and Criseyde
„Thanne is it wysdom, as it thynketh me,
To maken vertu of necessity,“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book The Canterbury Tales
The Knight's Tale, lV 2177 - 2186
The Canterbury Tales
Context: p>What maketh this, but Juppiter the kyng,
That is prince and cause of alle thyng
Convertynge al unto his propre welle
From which it is deryved, sooth to telle,
And heer-agayns no creature on lyve
Of no degree availleth for to strive.Thanne is it wysdom, as it thynketh me,
To maken vertu of necessity,
And take it weel, that we may nat eschue;
And namely, that to us alle is due.</p
„This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo,
And we been pilgrymes, passynge to and fro“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book The Canterbury Tales
The Knight's Tale, lV, 1990 - 1992
The Canterbury Tales
Context: This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo,
And we been pilgrymes, passynge to and fro;
Deeth is an ende of every worldly soore.
„What is this world? what asketh men to have?“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book The Canterbury Tales
The Knight's Tale, IV, 1919 - 1921
The Canterbury Tales
Context: What is this world? what asketh men to have?
Now with his love, now in his colde grave
Allone, withouten any compaignye.
„Ech man for hymself, ther is noon other.“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book The Canterbury Tales
The Knight's Tale, l. 1181-1182
The Canterbury Tales
Context: And therfore, at the kynges court, my brother,
Ech man for hymself, ther is noon other.
„Taketh the fruit, and let the chaff be still.“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book The Canterbury Tales
The Nun's Priest's Tale, l. 672-677
The Canterbury Tales
Context: But yet that holden this tale a folly,
As of a fox, or of a cock and hen,
Taketh the morality, good men.
For Saint Paul saith that all that written is,
To our doctrine it is y-writ, ywis;
Taketh the fruit, and let the chaff be still.
„Eek for to winne love in sondry ages,
In sondry londes, sondry ben usages.“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book Troilus and Criseyde
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
Context: Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do;
Eek for to winne love in sondry ages,
In sondry londes, sondry ben usages.
Book 2, line 22-28
„Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book Troilus and Criseyde
Book 2, line 22-28
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
Context: Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do;
Eek for to winne love in sondry ages,
In sondry londes, sondry ben usages.
„The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne.
Th’ assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge,
The dredful joye, alwey that slit so yerne;
Al this mene I be love.“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book Parlement of Foules
Parlement of Foules, l. 1-4; comparable with Hippocrates, Aphorisms 1:1
Source: The Parliament of Birds
„the greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people“
— Geoffrey Chaucer, book The Canterbury Tales
The Reeve's Tale, l. 134
The Canterbury Tales
Variant: The gretteste clerkes been noght wisest men.
Source: The Complete Poetry and Prose
