A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations.

A civilized man is one who will give a serious answer to a serious question. Civilization itself is a certain sane balance of values.

From the colour the nature And by the nature the sign! Beatific spirits welding together As in one ash-tree in Ygdrasail.

Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts.

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet black bough.

As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, When the hot water gives out or goes tepid, So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.

Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever.