Quotes from The Canterbury Tales

“people can die of mere imagination”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“If gold rusts, what then can iron do?”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“No empty handed man can lure a bird”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Then you compared a woman's love to Hell,
To barren land where water will not dwell,
And you compared it to a quenchless fire,
The more it burns the more is its desire
To burn up everything that burnt can be.
You say that just as worms destroy a tree
A wife destroys her husband and contrives,
As husbands know, the ruin of their lives. ”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Purity in body and heart
May please some--as for me, I make no boast.
For, as you know, no master of a household
Has all of his utensils made of gold;
Some are wood, and yet they are of use.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“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, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Yet do not miss the moral, my good men.
For Saint Paul says that all that’s written well
Is written down some useful truth to tell.
Then take the wheat and let the chaff lie still.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“But Christ's lore and his apostles twelve,
He taught and first he followed it himself.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“And high above, depicted in a tower,
Sat Conquest, robed in majesty and power,
Under a sword that swung above his head,
Sharp-edged and hanging by a subtle thread.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“High on a stag the Goddess held her seat,
And there were little hounds about her feet;
Below her feet there was a sickle moon,
Waxing it seemed, but would be waning soon.
Her statue bore a mantle of bright green,
Her hand a bow with arrows cased and keen;
Her eyes were lowered, gazing as she rode
Down to where Pluto has his dark abode.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“But for to telle yow al hir beautee,
It lyth nat in my tonge, n'yn my konnyng;
I dar nat undertake so heigh a thyng.
Myn Englissh eek is insufficient.
It moste been a rethor excellent
That koude his colours longynge for that art,
If he sholde hire discryven every part.
I am noon swich, I moot speke as I kan.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Youre tale anoyeth al this compaignye.
Swich talkyng is nat worth a boterflye,”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“By God," quod he, "for pleynly, at a word,
Thy drasty rymyng is nat worth a toord!”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in switch licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So Priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Her statue, glorious in majesty,
Stood naked, floating on a vasty sea,
And from the navel down there were a mass
Of green and glittering waves as bright as glass.
In her right hand a cithern carried she
And on her head, most beautiful to see,
A garland of fresh roses, while above
There circles round her many a flickering dove.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Youth may outrun the old, but not outwit.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“He who repeats a tale after a man,
Is bound to say, as nearly as he can,
Each single word, if he remembers it,
However rudely spoken or unfit,
Or else the tale he tells will be untrue,
The things invented and the phrases new.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Be nat wrooth, my lord, though that I pleye. Ful ofte in game a sooth I have herd seye!”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“There are no footnotes or endnotes in this translation. If any explanations or clarifications are required, they are embedded in the body of the text, so as not to interrupt the flow of the words. After all, as Noel Coward once famously remarked, “Having to read a footnote resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“The man who has no wife is no cuckold.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Ye sey right sooth; this Monk he clappeth lowde.
He spak how Fortune covered with a clowde
I noot nevere what; and als of a tragedie
Right now ye herde, and pardee, no remedie
It is for to biwaille ne compleyne
That that is doon, and als it is a peyne,
As ye han seyd, to heere of hevynesse.
Sire Monk, namoore of this, so God yow blesse!
Youre tale anoyeth al this compaignye.
Swich talkyng is nat worth a boterflye,”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“La moraleja de todas las tragedias es la misma: que la Fortuna siempre ataca a los reinos prepotentes cuando menos lo esperan.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“O woman’s counsel is so often cold! A woman’s counsel brought us first to woe, Made Adam out of Paradise to go Where he had been so merry, so well at ease.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“la virtud que corona la perfección es la paciencia".”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Then the Miller fell off his horse.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Three years went by in happiness and health; He bore himself so well in peace and war That there was no one Theseus valued more.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Who shall give a lover any law?’ Love is a greater law, by my troth, than any law written by mortal man.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“Jesús de Sirach afirma: «Quien tiene el corazón alegre y contento se conserva vigoroso a través de los años, pero un corazón entristecido reseca los huesos».”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

“But of no nombre mencioun made he, Of bigamye, or of octogamye33. Why sholde men thanne speke of it vileinye34?”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from The Canterbury Tales

About the author

Popular quotes

“Maybe I don't feel like taking orders.”
― Meredith Wild, quote from Hard Limit

“If I really seem vain, it is that I am only vain in my ways—not in my heart. The worst women are those vain in their hearts, and not in their ways.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes

“But we had no intention of becoming shopkeepers or merely earning money. We needed work that would at the same time procure us satisfaction. And more than anything, we desired to make ourselves useful”
― Heinrich Harrer, quote from Seven Years in Tibet (Paladin Books)

“Ni en la guerra debe haber muertos inutiles. Usted me entiende, vaya al colegio y trate en el futuro de que la muerte del cadete Arana sirve para algo.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, quote from The Time of the Hero

“The Marshall Plan had stopped the Communists, had brought the European nations back from destruction and decay, had performed an economic miracle; and there was, given the can-do nature of Americans, a tendency on their part to take perhaps more credit than might be proper for the actual operation of the Marshall Plan, a belief that they had done it and controlled it, rather than an admission that it had been the proper prescription for an economically weakened Europe and that it was the Europeans themselves who had worked the wonders.”
― David Halberstam, quote from The Best and the Brightest

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.