Geoffrey Chaucer

For tyme ylost may nought recovered be.

For in their hearts doth Nature stir them so Then people long on pilgrimage to go And palmers to be seeking foreign strands To distant shrines renowned in sundry lands.

If gold rusts, what then can iron do?

Thus with hir fader for a certeyn space_x000D_ _x000D_ Dwelleth this flour of wyfly pacience,_x000D_ _x000D_ That neither by hir wordes ne hir face_x000D_ _x000D_ Biforn the folk, ne eek in her absence,_x000D_ _x000D_ Ne shewed she that hir was doon offence.

Ther nis no werkman, whatsoevere he be, That may bothe werke wel and hastily.

For oute of olde feldys, as men sey,_x000D_ _x000D_ Comyth al this newe corn from yer to yere;_x000D_ _x000D_ And out of olde bokis, in good fey,_x000D_ _x000D_ Comyth al this newe science that men lere.

But Christ's lore and his apostles twelve,_x000D_ He taught and first he followed it himself.

By God, if women had written stories, As clerks had within here oratories, They would have written of men more wickedness Than all the mark of Adam may redress.

What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.

At the ches with me she (Fortune) gan to pleye; With her false draughts (pieces) dyvers/She staal on me, and took away my fers. And when I sawgh my fers awaye, Allas! I kouthe no lenger playe.

Filth and old age, I'm sure you will agree, are powerful wardens upon chastity.

There's never a new fashion but it's old.

Whoso will pray, he must fast and be clean, And fat his soul, and make his body lean.

Lat take a cat, and fostre him wel with milk, And tendre flesh, and make his couche of silk, And let him seen a mous go by the wal; Anon he weyveth milk, and flesh, and al, And every deyntee that is in that hous, Swich appetyt hath he to ete a mous.

But manly set the world on sixe and sevene; And, if thou deye a martir, go to hevene.

Murder will out, this my conclusion.

Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.

The life so short, the crafts so long to learn.

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.

By nature, men love newfangledness.

. . . if gold rust, what then will iron do?/ For if a priest be foul in whom we trust/ No wonder that a common man should rust. . . .