In times gone by there lived a Count of Ponthieu, who loved chivalry and the pleasures of the world beyond measure, and moreover was a stout knight and a gallant gentleman.
If one of two lovers is loyal, and the other jealous and false, how may their friendship last, for Love is slain!
Be sure that you speak with unfeigned lips.
Out of five hundred who speak glibly of love, not one can spell the first letter of his name.
You have to endure what you can’t change.
I love no woman, for love is a serious business, not a jest.
A bully is not reasonable – he is persuaded only by threats.
Desire can blind us to the hazards of our enterprises.
The rich are never threatened by the poor – they do not notice them.
By men’s words we know them.
He who would tell divers tales must know how to vary the tune.
For what the lover would, that would the beloved; what she would ask of him that should he go before to grant. Without accord such as this, love is but a bond and a constraint.
We love what we should scorn if we were wiser.
For above all things Love means sweetness, and truth, and measure; yea, loyalty to the loved one and to your word. And because of this I dare not meddle with so high a matter.
The dead and past stories that I have told again in divers fashions, are not set down without authority.
Fairest and dearest, your wrath and anger are more heavy than I can bear; but learn that I cannot tell what you wish me to say without sinning against my honour too grievously.
But sweetly and discreetly love passes from person to person, from heart to heart, or it is nothing worth.
But Fortune, who never forgets her duty, turns her wheel suddenly.
There are divers men who make a great show of loyalty, and pretend to such discretion in the hidden things they hear, that at the end folk come to put faith in them.
Whoever believes in a man is very foolish.