Spectators

All the springs of his life were kept oiled by a quiet humor, which sometimes broke out in playful sparkles.... He had a placid way of amusing himself with the quaint and picturesque side of life....

There are those people who possess a peculiar faculty of mingling in the affairs of this life as spectators as well as actors. It does not, of course, suppose any coldness of nature or want of human interest or sympathy—nay, it often exists most completely with people of the tenderest human feeling. It rather seems to be a kind of distinct faculty working harmoniously with all the others; but he who possesses it needs never to be at a loss for interest or amusement; he is always a spectator at a tragedy or comedy, and sees in real life a humor and a pathos beyond anything he can find shadowed in books.

—Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Pearl of Orr's Island.

Secrets

For Seneca seith: 'if so be that thou ne mayst nat thyn owene conseil hyde, how darstou prayen any oother wight thy conseil secrely to kepe?'.

As Seneca said, "If you cannot keep your own counsel, but share your secret with another, how dare you expect him to keep it better than you did?"

—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Tale of Melibee §24, quoting source unknown.

The Great Lesson of Life

How many men approach the close of their days in fear and loathing, having mistook the great lesson of life - having sought to the last the way to live, but not the way to die.

—After Lucius Annaeus Seneca, On the Shortness of Life.

The Parson

Holy and virtuous he was, but then
Never contempuous of sinful men,
Never disdainful, never too proud or fine,
But was discreet in teaching and benign.
His business was to show a fair behaviour
And draw men thus to Heaven and their Saviour,
He sought no pomp or glory in his dealings,
No scrupulosity had spiced his feelings.
Christ and His twelve Apostles and their lore
He taught, but followed it himself before.

—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Preface, translated by Nevill Coghill.

Forget Lowriders

Upon that oother side, to speken of the horrible disordinat scantnesse of clothyng as been thise kutted sloppes, or haynselyns, that thurgh hire shortnesse ne covere nat the shameful membres of man to wikked entente. Allas! somme of hem shewen the boce of hir schap, and the horrible swollen membres, that semeth lik the maladie of hirnia, in the wrappynge of hir hoses; and eek the buttokes of hem faren as it were the hyndre part of a she ape in the fulle of the moone.

—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Parson's Tale, Pride.