"That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."

"Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings."

"The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it."

"I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right."

"Resolve to spend a certain number of hours every day amongst your books."

"Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little."

"[T]hey who complain, in peace, of the insolence of the populace, must remember, that their insolence in peace is bravery in war."

"Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving."

"The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life."

"It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say."

"[S]uch is the delight of mental superiority, that none on whom nature or study have conferred it, would purchase the gifts of fortune by its loss."

"To neglect at any time preparation for death, is to sleep on our post at a siege, but to omit it in old age, is to sleep at an attack."

"There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice, And wake from ignorance the Western World."

"To-morrow's action! Can that hoary wisdom, Borne down with years, still doat upon tomorrow! That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy, The coward, and the fool, condemn'd to lose A useless life in waiting for to-morrow, To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow, Till interposing death destroys the prospect Strange! that this general fraud from day to day Should fill the world with wretches undetected. The soldier, labouring through a winter's march, Still sees to-morrow drest in robes of triumph; Still to the lover's long-expecting arms To-morrow brings the visionary bride. But thou, too old to hear another cheat, Learn, that the present hour alone is man's."

"A thousand horrid Prodigies foretold it. A feeble government, eluded Laws, A factious Populace, luxurious Nobles, And all the maladies of stinking states."

"Unmoved though Witlings sneer and Rivals rail, Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail. He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain. With merit needless, and without it vain. In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust: Ye Fops, be silent: and ye Wits, be just."

"This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confessed — Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed."

"Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest"

"By Numbers here from Shame or Censure free, All Crimes are safe, but hated Poverty. This, only this, the rigid Law persues, This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse."

"It is pretty generally admitted that Geoffrey Chaucer, the eminent poet of the fourteenth century, though obsessed with an almost Rooseveltian passion for the new spelling, was there with the goods when it came to profundity of thought."

"The morning star of song, who made His music heard below; Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still."

"Dan Geffrey, in whose gentle spright The pure well-head of poetry did dwell."

"Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled On Fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be filed."

"I read Chaucer still with as much pleasure as almost any of our poets. He is a master of manners, of description, and the first tale-teller in the true enlivened natural way."

"One... characteristic of medieval space must be noted: space and time form two relatively independent systems. First: the medieval artist introduced other times within his own spatial world, as when he projected the events of Christ's life within a contemporary Italian city, without the slightest feeling that the passage of time has made a difference, just as in Chaucer the classical legend of Troilus and Cressida is related as if it were a contemporary story. When a medieval chronicler mentions the King... it is sometimes difficult to find out whether he is talking about Caeser or Alexander the Great or his own monarch: each is equally near to him. ...the word anachronism is meaningless when applied to medieval art... in Botticelli's The Three Miracles of St. Zenobius, three different times are presented upon a single stage."

"One of those rare authors whom, if we had met him under a porch in a shower, we should have preferred to the rain."

"He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote The Canterbury Tales, and his old age Made beautiful with song; and as I read I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note Of lark and linnet, and from every page Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead."

"That noble Chaucer, in those former times, The first enriched our English with his rhymes, And was the first of ours that ever broke Into the Muses' treasures, and first spoke In weighty numbers, delving in the mine Of perfect knowledge."

"'Tis sufficient to say according to the Proverb, that here is God's Plenty."

"As he is the Father of English Poetry, so I hold him in the same Degree of Veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil: He is a perpetual Fountain of good Sense; learn'd in all Sciences; and, therefore speaks properly on all Subjects: As he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off; a Continence which is practis'd by few Writers, and scarcely by any of the Ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace. ... Chaucer follow'd Nature every where, but was never so bold to go beyond her."

"Chaucer was one of the most original men who ever lived. There had never been anything like the lively realism of the ride to Canterbury done or dreamed of in our literature before. He is not only the father of all our poets, but the grandfather of all our hundred million novelists."

"The worshipful father and first founder and embellisher of ornate eloquence in our English."

"Chaucer, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on him, I think obscene and contemptible;—he owes his celebrity, merely to his antiquity, which he does not deserve so well as Pierce Plowman, or Thomas of Ercildoune."

"For iii may keep a counsel if twain be away."

"O little booke, thou art so unconning, How darst thou put thy-self in prees for drede?"

"Your duty is, as ferre as I can gesse."

"And she was fair as is the rose in May."

"My lady cometh, that al this may disteyne."

"That wel by reson men hit calle may The 'dayesye' or elles the 'ye of day,' The emperice and flour of floures alle."

"Of all the floures in the mede, Than love I most these floures whyte and rede, Swiche that men callen daysies in our toun."

"And as for me, thogh that I can but lyte, On bokes for to rede I me delyte, And to hem yeve I feyth and ful credence, And in myn herte have hem in reverence So hertely, that ther is game noon That fro my bokes maketh me to goon, But hit be seldom, on the holyday; Save, certeynly, whan that the month of May Is comen, and that I here the foules singe, And that the floures ginnen for to springe, Farwel my book and my devocioun!"

"And if that olde bokes were a-weye, Y-loren were of remembraunce the keye."

"A thousand tymes have I herd men telle, That ther is joye in heven, and peyne in helle; And I acorde wel that hit is so; But natheles, yit wot I wel also, That ther nis noon dwelling in this contree, That either hath in heven or helle y-be, Ne may of hit non other weyes witen, But as he hath herd seyd, or founde hit writen; For by assay ther may no man hit preve. But god forbede but men shulde leve Wel more thing then men han seen with yë! Men shal nat wenen every-thing a lyë But-if him-self hit seeth, or elles dooth; For, god wot, thing is never the lasse sooth, Thogh every wight ne may hit nat y-see. Bernard the monk ne saugh nat al, parde!"

"Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, That hast this wintres weders over-shake, And driven awey the longe nightes blake!"

"Nature, the vicar of th' Almightie Lorde."

"For out of olde feldes, as men seith, Cometh al this newe corn fro yeer to yere; And out of olde bokes, in good feith, Cometh al this newe science that men lere."

"The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne, Th' assay so hard, so sharp the conquering, The dredful joy, that alwey slit so yerne, Al this mene I by love."

"Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal! Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al; Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede: And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede."

"Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse, Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal; For hord hath hate, and climbing tikelnesse, Prees hath envye, and wele blent overal."

"Therwith ye ben so mery and so jocounde, That at a revel whan that I see you daunce, It is an oynement unto my wounde, Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce."