- Who looks at me, beholdeth sorrows all,
- All pain, all torture, woe and all distress;
- I have no need on other harms to call,
- As anguish, languor, cruel bitterness,
- Discomfort, dread, and madness more and less;
- Methinks from heaven above the tears must rain
- In pity for my harsh and cruel pain.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER, Troilus and Cressida
- For God's love, take things patiently, have sense,
- Think! We are prisoners and shall always be.
- Fortune has given us this adversity,
- Some wicked planetary dispensation,
- Some Saturn's trick or evil constellation
- Has given us this, and Heaven, though we had sworn
- The contrary, so stood when we were born.
- We must endure it, that's the long and short.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER, The Canterbury Tales
- Patience is a conquering virtue.
- The learned say that, if it not desert you,
- It vanquishes what force can never reach;
- Why answer back at every angry speech?
- No, learn forbearance or, I'll tell you what,
- You will be taught it, whether you will or not.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER, The Canterbury Tales
Hold it wise ...
To make a virtue of necessity.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER, "The Knight's Tale", The Canterbury Tales
If gold rusts, what then can iron do?
GEOFFREY CHAUCER, The Canterbury Tales
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