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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

Before mine eyes in opposition sits
Grim Death, my son and foe.

Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter, holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it, as you go.
On the light fantastic toe.

L'Allegro (1631)

What cause
Moved the Creator in his holy rest
Through all eternity so late to build
In chaos, and, the work begun, how soon
Absolved.

What thou bidd'st
Unargu'd I obey, so God ordains;
God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.

He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.

Lycidas (1637)

Myself am Hell;
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide;
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a groveling swine?

Comus (1637)

And feel that I am happier than I know.

By merit raised
To that bad eminence.

The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty.

L'Allegro (1631)

Experience, next, to thee I owe,
Best guide; not following thee, I had remain'd
In ignorance; thou open'st wisdom's way,
And giv'st access, though secret she retire.

He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun.

Comus (1637)

What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome.

No war, or battle's sound
Was heard the world around.
The idle spear and shield were high up hung.

On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629)

A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.

Areopagitica (1644)

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny 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.

Areopagitica (1644)

In twisted braids of Lillies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair

I argue not
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward.

Yet I argue not
Again Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of right or hope; but still bear up and steer
Eight onward.

And from her native east,
To journey through the aery gloom began,
Spher'd in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not.

Attribution

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