Geoffrey Chaucer: Quotes about love

Geoffrey Chaucer was English poet. Explore interesting quotes on love.

Geoffrey Chaucer: 198 quotes39 likes

“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

“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

“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.”

Geoffrey Chaucer book The Canterbury Tales

Source: The Canterbury Tales

“Love is a thyng as any spirit free.
Wommen, of kynde, desiren libertee,
And nat to been constreyned as a thral;
And so doon men, if I sooth seyen shal.”

Geoffrey Chaucer book The Canterbury Tales

The Franklin's Tale, l. 767-770
The Canterbury Tales

“Of all the floures in the mede,
Than love I most these floures white and rede,
Soch that men callen daisies in our toun.”

Geoffrey Chaucer

Prologue of the Legend of Good Women, line 41
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)