Skip to content

John Milton Quotes

1608–1674 England

John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is most famous for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), written in blank verse.

England
Essayists
Philosophers
Poets
Theologians

Also known as: Milton, Milton, John, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce

Random John Milton quote

502 quotes

If by fire
Of sooty coal th' empiric alchymist
Can turn, or holds it possible to turn,
Metals of drossiest ore to perfect gold.

Nor did there want
Cornice or frieze with bossy sculpture graven.

It were a journey like the path to heaven,
To help you find them.

Comus (1637)

Thy boist'rous locks, no worthy match
For valour to assail, nor by the sword
* * * * * *
But by the barber's razor best subdued.

Samson Agonistes (1671)

Or call up him that left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold.

Il Penseroso (1631)

Join voices, all ye living souls: ye birds,
That singing up to heaven-gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.

For such a numerous host
Fled not in silence through the frighted deep
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded.

Attic tragedies of stateliest and most regal argument.

Tractate of Education (1644)

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

Therefore God's universal law
Gave to the man despotic power
Over his female in due awe,
Not from that right to part an hour,
Smile she or lour.

Samson Agonistes (1671)

Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth.

Lycidas (1637)

Others more mild,
Retreated in a silent valley, sing
With notes angelical to many a harp
Their own heroic deeds and hapless fall
By doom of battle.

The thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.

In mirth that after no repenting draws.

Under the opening eyelids of the morn.

Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.

And liquid lapse of murmuring streams.

As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye.

Sable-vested Night, eldest of things.

A stream of rich distill'd perfumes.

Comus (1634)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Milton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.