John Milton Quotes

Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown in courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, where most may wonder at the workmanship.

The pilot of the Galilean lake; Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).

And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems.

This horror will grow mild, this darkness light.

Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offence returning, to regain Love once possess'd.

Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.

A poet soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him.

Solitude is sometimes the best society.

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise. That last infirmity of noble mind. To scorn delights, and live laborious days.

Him that yon soars on golden wing, guiding the fiery-wheelèd throne, the Cherub Contemplation.

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

Our state cannot be severed, we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.

God sure esteems the growth and completing of one virtuous person, more that the restraint of ten vicious.

Tower'd cities please us then, And the busy hum of men.

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.

By a certain fate, great acts, and great eloquence have most commonly gone hand in hand, equalling and honoring each other in the same ages.

This manner of writing wherein knowing myself inferior to myself? I have the use, as I may account it, but of my left hand.

The first and wisest of them all professed To know this only, that he nothing knew.

They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet Quaff immortality and joy.

Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss.

Danger will wink on opportunity.

The strongest and the fiercest spirit That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair.

And that must end us, that must be our cure: To be no more. Sad cure! For who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish, rather, swallowed up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night Devoid of sense and motion?

One sip of this will bathe the drooping spirits in delight, beyond the bliss of dreams.

Let us no more contend, nor blame each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive, In offices of love, how we may lighten each other's burden.

Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason's garb, counseled ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth, not peace.

For neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, except to God alone.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!

Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

Part of my soul I seek thee, and claim thee my other half

Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell >From heaven; for ev'n in heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd In vision beatific.

Nor aught availed him now to have built in heaven high towers; nor did he scrape by all his engines, but was headlong sent with his industrious crew to build in hell.

So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.

Moping melancholy And moon-struck madness.

Arms on armour clashing bray'd Horrible discord, and the madding wheels Of brazen chariots rag'd: dire was the noise Of conflict.

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.

Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.

Thou art my father, thou my author, thou my being gav'st me; whom should I obey but thee, whom follow?

Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk.

Nothing profits more than self-esteem, grounded on what is just and right.

[Rhyme is] but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meter; ... Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme, ... as have also long since our best English tragedies, as... trivial and of no true musical delight; which [truly] consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory.

From morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,- A summer's day; and with the setting sun Dropp'd from the Zenith like a falling star.

Faithful found among the faithless.

Only this I know, That one celestial father gives to all.

For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.

Be lowly wise: Think only what concerns thee and thy being.

The love-lorn nightingale nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well.

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