„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.

Last update May 22, 2020.

Geoffrey Chaucer98

English poet 1343 - 1400

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Related quotes

„[chaff] Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.“

— Elbert Hubbard American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul 1856 - 1915

The Philistine http://books.google.com/books?id=MaVHAAAAYAAJ&q=%22editor+a+person+employed+on+a+newspaper%22+%22whose+business+it+is+to+separate+the+wheat+from+the+chaff+and+to+see+that+the+chaff+is+printed%22&pg=PA810#v=onepage (May 1913)
The Roycroft Dictionary Concocted by Ali Baba and the Bunch on Rainy Days http://books.google.com/books?id=ZQLpQ2SAIeQC&q=%22Editor+1+a+person+employed+on+a+newspaper+whose+business+it+is+to+separate+the+wheat+from+the+chaff+and+to+see+that+the+chaff+is+printed%22&pg=PA46#v=onepage (1914).
Famous Lines: A Columbia Dictionary of Familiar Quotations https://books.google.com/books?id=MtciwlIG3sMC&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=adlai+chaff+elbert#v=onepage&q=adlai%20chaff%20elbert&f=false (1997), see Adlai Stevenson for a later variation

Personality, Business

„An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.“

— Adlai Stevenson mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN 1900 - 1965

Quoted in The Fine Art of Political Wit by Leon Harris (1964)
Quoted in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0231071949 by Robert Andrews (1993)
"Newspaper editors are people who separate the wheat from the chaff and then print the chaff." https://books.google.com/books?id=w8_p1eGVj8gC&pg=PA568&lpg=PA568&dq=adlai+chaff#v=onepage&q=adlai%20chaff&f=false (variation)
"Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and print the chaff." https://books.google.com/books?id=OTi0DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA701&lpg=PA701&dq=print+the+chaff&hl=en&sa=X#v=onepage&q=%22print%20the%20chaff%22&f=false (variation)
"Journalists separate the wheat from the chaff... and then print the chaff." https://books.google.com/books?id=5pXjFMzIUO8C&pg=PA263&lpg=PA263&dq=adlai+chaff&hl=en&sa=X#v=onepage&q=adlai%20chaff&f=false (variation) 
This statement has also been attributed https://books.google.com/books?id=d6JZryGvfxYC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=adlai+chaff#v=onepage&q=adlai%20chaff&f=false to an earlier usage by Elbert Hubbard.

„Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.“

— William Johnson Cory English educator and poet 1823 - 1892

Poem Heraclitus.

Death

„The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.“

— Tom Waits American singer-songwriter and actor 1949

"Step Right Up", Small Change (1976).
Variant: The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.
Source: The Early Years: The Lyrics, 1971-1983

„…some say that Happiness is not Good for Mortals & they ought to be answerd that Sorrow is not fit for Immortals & is utterly useless to any one a blight never does good to a tree & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.“

— William Blake English Romantic poet and artist 1757 - 1827

Letter to William Hayley (1803-10-07)
1810s

Happiness, Tree

„The vehicle of actions begin to ripen into fruit when the afflictions exist; not when the afflictions have been rooted out. As the rice in the paddy has the power to grow only so long as the chaff remains attached thereto and their seed power is not burnt up, not when the chaff has been removed, so also does the vehicle of actions grow into ripeness, when the afflictions are attached to it, and when is seed-power not has not been burnt up by intellection; not when the afflictions have been removed.“

— Vyasa central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions

In p. 110.
Sources

Affliction

„Offended people still may experience miracles, words of utterance, strong preaching, and healing in their lives. But these are gifts of the Spirit, not fruits. We will be judged according to fruit, not gifting. A gift is given. Fruit is cultivated.“

— John Bevere American author 1959

Source: The Bait Of Satan: Living Free from the Deadly Trap of Offense

Strong, People

„Treating the sword blade the same as the staff,
Turning the chariot wheel into chaff.“

— Nathalia Crane American writer 1913 - 1998

"The Dust" 
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)
Context: Treating the sword blade the same as the staff,
Turning the chariot wheel into chaff.
Toppling a pillar and nudging a wall,
Building a sand pile to counter each fall.
Yielding to nothing — not even the rose,
The dust has its reasons wherever it goes.

„This is he.
This is the man they ate at the green table
Putting their gloves on ere they touched the meat.
This is the fruit of war, the fruit of peace,
The ripeness of invention, the new lamb,
The answer to the wisdom of the wise.
And still he hangs, and still he will not die
And still, on the steel city of our years
The light falls and the terrible blood streams down.“

— Stephen Vincent Benét poet, short story writer, novelist 1898 - 1943

Litany for Dictatorships (1935)
Context: For the man crucified on the crossed machine guns
Without name, without resurrection, without stars,
His dark head heavy with death and his flesh long sour
With the smell of his many prisons — John Smith, John Doe,
John Nobody — oh, crack your mind for his name!
Faceless as water, naked as the dust,
Dishonored as the earth the gas-shells poison
And barbarous with portent.
This is he.
This is the man they ate at the green table
Putting their gloves on ere they touched the meat.
This is the fruit of war, the fruit of peace,
The ripeness of invention, the new lamb,
The answer to the wisdom of the wise.
And still he hangs, and still he will not die
And still, on the steel city of our years
The light falls and the terrible blood streams down.

Light, Peace, War, Wisdom

„Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult healings we will undertake. And one of the most fruitful. (79)“

— Stephen Levine American poet and author 1937 - 2016

Source: A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last

„Let it please thee to keep in order a moderate-sized farm, that so thy garners may be full of fruits in their season.“

— Hesiod, book Works and Days

Source: Works and Days (c. 700 BC), line 304.

Season

„Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls.“

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, book Nature

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nature

Drawing, Nature, Way

„Whenever Allah’s Messenger saw the rain, he used to say, O Allah! Let it be a strong fruitful rain.“

— Aisha Muhammad's wife 605 - 678

Bukhari hadith 142

Strong

„For when you have once begun to serve the Goddess, you will then in a still higher degree enjoy the fruit of your liberty.“

— Apuleius, book The Golden Ass

Bk. 11, ch. 15; p. 233.
Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)
Original: (la) Nam cum coeperis deae servire, tunc magis senties fructum tuae libertatis.

„I was still hesitant to let myself let go, because I still believed in the fragility of happiness.“

— Ishmael Beah, book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Source: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Happiness

Truth

„As you get older, you find that often the wheat, disentangling itself from the chaff, comes out to meet you.“

— Gwendolyn Brooks American writer 1917 - 2000

Report From Part One (1972)

„A tomato may be a fruit, but it is a singular fruit. A savory fruit. A fruit that has ambitions far beyond the ambitions of other fruits.“

— E. Lockhart, book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Source: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks