John Milton Quotes

Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. ~ John Milton

Time is the subtle thief of youth. ~ John Milton

Thus Milton refines the question down to a matter of faith," said Coleridge, bringing the lecture to a close, "and a kind of faith more independent, autonomous - more truly strong, as a matter of fact - than the Puritans really sought. Faith, he tells us, is not an exotic bloom to be laboriously maintained by the exclusion of most aspects of the day to day world, nor a useful delusion to be supported by sophistries and half-truths like a child's belief in Father Christmas - not, in short, a prudently unregarded adherence to a constructed creed; but rather must be, if anything, a clear-eyed recognition of the patterns and tendencies, to be found in every piece of the world's fabric, which are the lineaments of God. This is why religion can only be advice and clarification, and cannot carry any spurs of enforcement - for only belief and behavior that is independently arrived at, and then chosen, can be praised or blamed. This being the case, it can be seen as a criminal abridgement of a person's rights willfully to keep him in ignorance of any facts - no piece can be judged inadmissible, for the more stones, both bright and dark, that are added to the mosaic, the clearer is our picture of God. ~ Tim Powers

To be weak is miserable,
Doing or suffering. ~ John Milton

So spake Israel's true king, and to the Fiend
Made answer meet, that made void all his wiles.
So fares it, when with truth falsehood contends. ~ John Milton

Hope elevates, and joy
Brightens his crest. ~ John Milton

Our two first parents, yet the only two Of mankind, in the happy garden placed, Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love, Uninterrupted joy, unrivalled love In blissful solitude. ~ John Milton

When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for. ~ John Milton

Milton's learned vocabulary [ ... ] and his distant perspectives, represent the authoritative unintelligibility of the parents' speech as heard by the child. ~ John Broadbent

Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled. ~ John Milton

Yours be the advantage all, mine the revenge ~ John Milton

When a king sets himself to bandy against the highest court and residence of all regal powers, he then, in the single person of a man, fights against his own majesty and kingship. ~ John Milton

Virtue hath no tongue to check vice's pride. ~ John Milton

Wisdom's self oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, where with her best nurse Contemplation, she plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings that in the various bustle of resort were all to-ruffled, and sometimes impaired. ~ John Milton

No institution which does not continually test its ideals, techniques and measure of accomplishment can claim real vitality. ~ John Milton

Who can in reason then or right assume monarchy over such as live by right his equals, if in power or splendor less, in freedom equal? ~ John Milton

Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav'n. ~ John Milton

Th'invention all admir'd, and each, how he to be th'inventor miss'd; so easy it seem'd once found, which yet unfound most would have thought impossible. ~ John Milton

Swinish gluttony never looks to heaven amidst its gorgeous feast; but with besotted, base ingratitude, cravens and blasphemes his feeder. ~ John Milton

Eloquence the soul, song charms the senses. ~ John Milton

And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth, and many a maid, Dancing in the checkered shade. And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holiday. ~ John Milton

Thus I set my printless feet O'er the cowslip's velvet head, That bends not as I tread. ~ John Milton

On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder. ~ John Milton

Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view. ~ John Milton

You can make hell out of heaven and heaven out of hell. It's all in the mind. ~ John Milton

Where the bright seraphim in burning row
Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow. ~ John Milton

Heaven
Is as the Book of God before thee set,
Wherein to read His wondrous works. ~ John Milton

And the earth self-balanced on her centre hung. ~ John Milton

Solitude is sometimes the best society. ~ John Milton

Hide me from day's garish eye, While the bee with honied thigh, That at her flowery work doth sing, And the waters murmuring With such consort as they keep, Entice the dewy-feathered sleep. ~ John Milton

But infinite in pardon is my Judge. ~ John Milton

Now I see Peace to corrupt no less than war to waste. ~ John Milton

Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded, But must be current, and the good thereof Consists in mutual and partaken bliss. ~ John Milton

There is no learned man but will confess be hath much profited by reading controversies,
his senses awakened, his judgment sharpened, and the truth which he holds firmly established. If then it be profitable for him to read, why should it not at least be tolerable and free for his adversary to write? In logic they teach that contraries laid together, more evidently appear; it follows then, that all controversy being permitted, falsehood will appear more false, and truth the more true; which must needs conduce much to the general confirmation of an implicit truth. ~ John Milton

But say That Death be not one stroak, as I suppos'd, Bereaving sense, but endless miserie From this day onward, which I feel begun Both in me, and without me, and so last To perpetuitie; Ay me, that fear Comes thundring back with dreadful revolution On my defensless head; both Death and I Am found Eternal, and incorporate both, Nor I on my part single, in mee all Posteritie stands curst: Fair Patrimonie That I must leave ye, Sons; O were I able To waste it all my self, and leave ye none! So disinherited how would ye bless Me now your Curse! Ah, why should all mankind For one mans fault thus guiltless be condemn'd, If guiltless? But ~ John Milton

Seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books. ~ John Milton

The martyrs shook the powers of darkness with the irresistible power of weakness. ~ John Milton

What boots it at one gate to make defence, And at another to let in the foe? ~ John Milton

They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide;
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way. ~ John Milton

The Tempter ere th' Accuser of man-kind, To wreck on innocent frail man his loss Of that first Battel, and his flight to Hell: Yet ~ John Milton

Smiles from reason flow, To brute deny'd, and are of love the food. ~ John Milton

Death Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear His famine should be fill'd. ~ John Milton

For neither do the spirits damned
Lose all their virtue, lest bad men should boast
Their specious deeds on earth which glory excites,
Or close ambition varnished o'er with zeal. ~ John Milton

Man hath his daily work of body or mind Appointed, which declares his dignity, And the regard of Heav'n on all his ways. ~ John Milton

He was, as every truly great poet has ever been, a good man; but finding it impossible to realize his own aspirations, either in religion or politics, or society, he gave up his heart to the living spirit and light within him, and avenged himself on the world by enriching it with this record of his own transcendental ideal. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And now without redemption all mankind
Must have been lost, adjudged to death and hell
By doom severe, had not the Son of God,
In whom the fullness dwells of love divine,
His dearest mediation thus renewed.
'Father, Thy word is passed, man shall find grace;
And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,
The speediest of Thy winged messengers,
To visit all Thy creatures, and to all
Comes unprevented, unimplored, unsought,
Happy for man, so coming; he her aid
Can never seek, once dead in sins and lost;
Atonement for himself or offering meet,
Indebted and undone, hath none to bring:
Behold Me then, Me for him, life for life
I offer, on Me let Thine anger fall;
Account Me man; I for his sake will leave
Thy bosom, and this glory next to Thee
Freely put off, and for him lastly die
Well pleased, on Me let death wreak all his rage;
Under his gloomy power I shall not long
Lie vanquished; Thou hast given Me to possess
Life in Myself forever, by Thee I live,
Though now to death I yield, and am his due
All that of Me can die, yet that debt paid,
Thou wilt not leave Me in the loathsome grave
His prey, nor suffer My unspotted soul
Forever with corruption there to dwell;
But I shall rise victorious, and subdue
My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil;
Death his death's wound shall then receive, and stoop
Inglorious, of his mortal ~ John Milton

When thou attended gloriously from heaven , Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send Thy summoning archangels to proclaim Thy dread tribunal. ~ John Milton

And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale. ~ John Milton

Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss ~ John Milton

In Physic, things of melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humors. ~ John Milton

The olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long. ~ John Milton

Ere the blabbing eastern scout, The nice morn, on th' Indian steep From her cabin'd loop-hole peep. ~ John Milton

I see thou art implacable, more deaf
To pray'rs than winds and seas. Yet winds to seas
Are reconcil'd at length, and sea to shore:
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages
Eternal tempest never to be calm'd. ~ John Milton

Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight. ~ John Milton

No date prefixed directs me in the starry rubric set. ~ John Milton

The happy place
Imparts to thee no happiness, no joy
Rather inflames thy torment, representing
Lost bliss, to thee no more communicable;
So never more in Hell than when in Heaven. ~ John Milton

For contemplation he and valour formed; / For softness she and sweet attractive grace, / He for God only, she for God in him: / His fair large front and eye sublime declared / Absolute rule. ~ John Milton

If we think we regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all regulations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. ~ John Milton

Implied Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway, And by her yielded, by him best receiv'd,- Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay. ~ John Milton

Joking decides great things, Stronger and better oft than earnest can. ~ John Milton

Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, sober steadfast, and demure, all in a robe of darkest grain, flowing with majestic train. ~ John Milton

The work under our labour grows, Luxurious by restraint. ~ John Milton

If at great things thou would'st arrive, Get riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap, Not difficult, if thou hearken to me; Riches are mine, fortune is in my hand, They whom I favor thrive in wealth amain, While virtue, valor, wisdom, sit in want. ~ John Milton

By night the Glass
Of Galileo ... observes
Imagin'd Land and Regions in the Moon. ~ John Milton

A boundless continent, Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of night Starless expos'd. ~ John Milton

Such bickerings to recount, met often in these our writers, what more worth is it than to chronicle the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air? ~ John Milton

Which, if not victory, is yet revenge. ~ John Milton

Where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand; For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce, Strive here for mast'ry. ~ John Milton

Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise, or blame,-nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble. ~ John Milton

John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet, prose polemicist, and civil servant for the English Commonwealth. Most famed for his epic poem Paradise Lost, Milton is celebrated as well for his eloquent treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica. Long considered the supreme English poet, Milton experienced a dip in popularity after attacks by T.S. Eliot and F.R. Leavis in the mid 20th century; but with multiple societies and scholarly journals devoted to his study, Milton's reputation remains as strong as ever in the 21st century. Very soon after his death – and continuing to the present day – Milton became the subject of partisan biographies, confirming T.S. Eliot's belief that "of no other poet is it so difficult to consider the poetry simply as poetry, without our theological and political dispositions…making unlawful entry." Milton's radical, republican politics and heretical religious views, coupled with the perceived artificiality of his complicated Latinate verse, alienated Eliot and other readers; yet by dint of the overriding influence of his poetry and personality on subsequent generations - particularly the Romantic movement - the man whom Samuel Johnson disparaged as "an acrimonious and surly republican" must be counted one of the most significant writers and thinkers of all time. Source: Wikipedia ~ John Milton

How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smiled! ~ John Milton

Fairy elves, Whose midnight revels by a forest side Or fountain some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon Sits arbitress. ~ John Milton

For books are as meats and viands are; some of good, some of evil sub-stance. ~ John Milton

To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new. ~ John Milton

No mighty trance, or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. ~ John Milton

A beardless cynic is the shame of nature. ~ John Milton

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as warbled to the string,
Drew Iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what Love did seek. ~ John Milton

Imparadis'd in one another's arms. ~ John Milton

They also serve who only stand and wait. ~ John Milton

O nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still; Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. ~ John Milton

Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies. ~ John Milton

The light which we have gained, was given us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a priest, the unmitering of a bishop, and the removing hum from the Presbyterian shoulders that will make us a happy nation; no, if other things as great in the Church, and in the rule of life both economical and political, be not looked into and reformed, we have looked so long upon the blaze that Zwinglius and Calvin have beaconed up to us, that we are stark blind. ~ John Milton

That who advances his glory, not their own, Them he himself to glory will advance. ~ John Milton

In God's intention, a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and noblest end of marriage. ~ John Milton

What is strength without a double share of wisdom? ~ John Milton

Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine. ~ John Milton

Indu'd With sanctity of reason. ~ John Milton

Heaven, the seat of bliss, Brooks not the works of violence and war. ~ John Milton

But oh the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone and never must return! ~ John Milton

Act of Grace my former state; how soon Would highth recal high thoughts, how soon unsay What feign'd submission swore: ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void. For never can true reconcilement grow Where wounds of deadly hate have peirc'd so deep: Which ~ John Milton

And what is faith, love, virtue unassay'd alone, without exterior help sustained? ~ John Milton

What though the field be lost?
All is not Lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And the courage never to submit or yeild. ~ John Milton

Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing. ~ John Milton

Sabrina fair
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of Lillies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,
Listen for dear honour's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save. ~ John Milton

Th' Angelic Guards ascended, mute and sad For Man, for of his state by this they knew, Much wondring how the suttle Fiend had stoln Entrance unseen. Soon as th' unwelcome news From Earth arriv'd at Heaven Gate, displeas'd All were who heard, dim sadness did not spare That time Celestial visages, yet mixt With pitie, violated not thir bliss. ~ John Milton

Ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void. ~ John Milton

Dorothea, with all her eagerness to know the truths of life, retained very childlike ideas about marriage. She felt sure that she would have accepted the judicious Hooker, if she had been born in time to save him from that wretched mistake he made in matrimony; or John Milton when his blindness had come on; or any of the other great men whose odd habits it would have been glorious piety to endure; but an amiable handsome baronet, who said "Exactly" to her remarks even when she expressed uncertainty,
how could he affect her as a lover? The really delightful marriage must be that where your husband was a sort of father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it. ~ George Eliot

Neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible except to God alone. ~ John Milton

But wherefore thou alone? Wherefore with thee Came not all hell broke loose?
~ John Milton

Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves,
Who all the sacred mysteries of Heaven
To their own vile advantages shall turn
Of lucre and ambition, and the truth
With superstitions and traditions taint,
Left only in those written records pure,
Thought not but by the spirit understood. ~ John Milton