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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

God attributes to place
No sanctity, if none be thither brought
By men who there frequent.

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

Samson Agonistes (1671)

I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of death.

Comus (1637)

Adam the goodliest man of men since born
His sons, the fairest of her daughters, Eve.

Nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study household good,
And good works in her husband to promote.

Though to recount almighty works
What words of tongue or seraph can suffice,
Or heart of man suffice to comprehend?

For nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study household good,
And good works in her husband to promote.

Who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers?

Areopagitica (1644)

Where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes,
That comes to all.

But to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom.

And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.

Il Penseroso (1631)

Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live.

Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.

L'Allegro (1631)

I will not deny but that the best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words.

Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)

Beauty stands in the admiration only of weak minds led captive.

Paradise Regained (1671)

* * his providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good.

What in me is dark, Illumine, what is low, raise and support.

Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men.

L'Allegro (1631)

Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe.

Surer to prosper than prosperity could have assur'd us.

Attribution

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