Marie de France Quotations

The fool shouts loudly, thinking to impress the world.

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.

Be sure that you speak with unfeigned lips.

If one of two lovers is loyal, and the other jealous and false, how may their friendship last, for Love is slain!

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.

Now will I rehearse before you a very ancient Breton Lay. As the tale was told to me, so, in turn, will I tell it over again, to the best of my art and knowledge. Hearken now to my story, its why and its reason.

But sweetly and discreetly love passes from person to person, from heart to heart, or it is nothing worth.

He who would tell divers tales must know how to vary the tune.

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.

I love no woman, for love is a serious business, not a jest.

Out of five hundred who speak glibly of love, not one can spell the first letter of his name.

The dead and past stories that I have told again in divers fashions, are not set down without authority.

Whosoever counts these Lays as fable, may be assured that I am not of his mind.

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.

Great were the lamentation and the cry when the news of this mischance was noised about the city. Such a tumult of mourning was never before heard, for the whole city was moved.

Whoever believes in a man is very foolish.

But Fortune, who never forgets her duty, turns her wheel suddenly.

Whoever has received knowledge and eloquence in speech from God should not be silent or secretive but demonstrate it willingly. When a great good is widely heard of, then, and only then, does it bloom, and when that good is praised by man, it has spread its blossoms.

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

You have to endure what you can't change.

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.

We love what we should scorn if we were wiser.

Being too consumed in fear all the time will result in poor quality of life

Whoever wants to tell a variety of stories ought to have a variety of beginnings.

Man created God in his image: intolerant, sexist, homophobic and violent.