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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

Let his tormentor conscience find him out.

Paradise Regained (1671)

I neither oblige the belief of other person, nor overhastily subscribe mine own.

Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprovèd pleasures free.

L'Allegro (1631)

What honour that,
But tedious waste of time, to sit and hear
So many hollow compliments and lies.

Paradise Regained (1671)

Wisest men
Have erred, and by bad women been deceived;
And shall again, pretend they ne’er so wise.

Samson Agonistes (1671)

When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves
With minute drops from off the eaves.

Il Penseroso (1631)

But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now.

Comus (1637)

Yet I shall temper so
Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most
Them fully satisfied, and thee appease.

Her virtue and the conscience of her worth,
That would be woo'd, and not unsought be won.

And over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook, but delay'd to strike, though oft invoked.

In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs.

For never can true reconcilement grow,
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.

Hanging in a golden chain
This pendent world, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.

With thee conversing I forget all time:
All seasons and their change, all please alike.

What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid?

Comus (1637)

Or stars of morning, dew-drops which the sun
Impearls on every leaf and every flower.

A grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharg'd.

Though in heav'n the trees
Of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines
Yield nectar.

* * * And when night
Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons
Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.

Day and night,
Seed-time and harvest, heat and hoary frost
Shall hold their course, till fire purge all things new.

Attribution

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