“Thus in this heaven he took his delight And smothered her with kisses upon kisses Till gradually he came to know where bliss is.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from Troilus and Criseyde
“Men may the wise atrenne, and naught atrede.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from Troilus and Criseyde
“For thus men seyth, "That on thenketh the beere,
But al another thenketh his ledere.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from Troilus and Criseyde
“And after winter folweth grene May.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from Troilus and Criseyde
“Ne nevere mo ne lakked hire pite;
Tendre-herted, slydynge of corage;
But trewely, I kan nat telle hire age.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from Troilus and Criseyde
“Go litel bok, go, litel myn tragedye,
Ther God thi makere yet, er that he dye,
So sende myght to make in som comedye!
But litel book, no makyng thow n'envie,
But subgit be to alle poesye;
And kis the steppes where as thow seest pace
Virgile, Ovide, Omer, Lucan, and Stace.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from Troilus and Criseyde
“Go, litel bok, go, litel myn tragedye,”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, quote from Troilus and Criseyde
Geoffrey Chaucer
Born place: London, England
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“There is always, for some reason, an element of sadness mingled with my thoughts of human happiness, and, on this occasion, at the sight of a happy man I was overcome by an oppressive feeling that was close upon despair. It was particularly oppressive at night. A bed was made up for me in the room next to my brother’s bedroom, and I could hear that he was awake, and that he kept getting up and going to the plate of gooseberries and taking one. I reflected how many satisfied, happy people there really are! ‘What a suffocating force it is! You look at life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, incredible poverty all about us, overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lying... Yet all is calm and stillness in the houses and in the streets; of the fifty thousand living in a town, there is not one who would cry out, who would give vent to his indignation aloud. We see the people going to market for provisions, eating by day, sleeping by night, talking their silly nonsense, getting married, growing old, serenely escorting their dead to the cemetery; but we do not see and we do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on somewhere behind the scenes... Everything is quiet and peaceful, and nothing protests but mute statistics: so many people gone out of their minds, so many gallons of vodka drunk, so many children dead from malnutrition... And this order of things is evidently necessary; evidently the happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. It’s a case of general hypnotism. There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man some one standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, trouble will come for him—disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer; the happy man lives at his ease, and trivial daily cares faintly agitate him like the wind in the aspen-tree—and all goes well.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from Racconti
“There is more than one good way to drown.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems
“A beetle lumbered up onto her arm, and she stilled herself, enjoying the tickling feeling of its thread-thin feet. It was deep green with shimmers of blue and turquoise, with pitch-black legs. She kissed it very softly. If happiness were a color, it would be the color of this beetle, thought Wil.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from The Girl Savage
“We were quiet, two tiny specks glued down by gravity, peering at a universe that didn't notice us back.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Dangerous
“I’m surprised you don’t have any tattoos. I thought that was part of the artist uniform.”
“Who says I should be that much of a cliché? I’m naturally a masterpiece.”
― Renee Ericson, quote from More Than Water
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Black and BlueBookQuoters 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.
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