Geoffrey Chaucer: Man

“And therfore, at the kynges court, my brother,
Ech man for hymself, ther is noon other.”

“… 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….”

“Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.”

“Nowher so bisy a man as he ther nas,
And yet he semed bisier than he was.”

“Who so shall telle a tale after a man,
He moste reherse, as neighe as ever he can,
Everich word, if it be in his charge,
All speke he never so rudely and so large;
Or elles he moste tellen his tale untrewe,
Or feinen thinges, or finden wordes newe.”

“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.”

“For thogh we slepe, or wake, or rome, or ryde,
Ay fleeth the tyme; it nyl no man abyde.”

“Fie on possession,
But if a man be vertuous withal.”