“Off oure language he was the lodesterre.”
Prologue, line 252.
Of Chaucer.
The Fall of Princes
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
John Lydgate 22
monk and poet 1370–1450Related quotes

Malcolm Cowley, in Henry Goodman (ed.) The Selected Writings of Lafcadio Hearn (New York: Citadel Press, 1949) p. 15.
Criticism
As quoted by Jonathan Brown in "Mary Whitehouse: To some a crank, to others a warrior", The Independent, (24 November 2001).

“I don't like my language watered down, I don't like my edges rounded off.”

“We must, for example, use language, and our language is necessarily steeped in preconceived ideas.”
Source: Science and Hypothesis (1901), Ch. IX: Hypotheses in Physics, Tr. George Bruce Halsted (1913)
Context: It is often said that experiments should be made without preconceived ideas. That is impossible. Not only would it make every experiment fruitless, but even if we wished to do so, it could not be done. Every man has his own conception of the world, and this he cannot so easily lay aside. We must, for example, use language, and our language is necessarily steeped in preconceived ideas.