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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

Hence vain deluding Joys,
The brood of Folly without father bred!

Il Penseroso (1631)

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

Il Penseroso (1631)

So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop
Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease
Gather'd, not harshly pluck'd, for death mature.

And if by prayer
Incessant I could hope to change the will
Of Him who all things can, I would not cease
To weary Him with my assiduous cries.

And made the stars,
And set them in the firmament of heav'n,
T' illuminate the earth, and rule the day
In their vicissitude, and rule the night.

Hence, loathèd Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,
'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy.

L'Allegro (1631)

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.

Such sober certainty of waking bliss.

These evils I deserve, and more
* * * * * *
Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon,
Whose ear is ever open, and his eye
Gracious to re-admit the suppliant.

Samson Agonistes (1671)

Dancing in the chequer'd shade.

Madam, methinks I see him living yet;
So well your words his noble virtues praise,
That all both judge you to relate them true,
And to possess them, honour'd Margaret.

But that from us aught should ascend to Heav'n
So prevalent as to concern the mind
Of God, high-bless'd, or to incline His will,
Hard to belief may seem; yet this will prayer.

Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove afield; and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night.

Lycidas (1637)

Yet when I approach
Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,
And in herself complete; so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say,
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.

How gladly would I meet
Mortality my sentence, and be earth
Insensible! how glad would lay me down
As in my mother's lap!

It was the winter wild
While the Heav'n-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies.

On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629)

The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground.

* * as that dishonest victory
At Chæronea, fatal to liberty,
Killed with report that old man eloquent,
[Isocrates, the celebrated orator of Greece.]

So many laws argues so many sins.

Indu'd
With sanctity of reason.

Attribution

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