Marie de France

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

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.

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.

The fool shouts loudly, thinking to impress the world.

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

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