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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

There swift return
Diurnal, merely to officiate light
Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot.

* * * and now expecting
Each hour their great adventurer, from the search
Of foreign worlds.

Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit
That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair.

He of their wicked ways
Shall them admonish, and before them set
The paths of righteousness.

Black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart.

Take heed lest passion sway
Thy judgment to do aught, which else free will
Would not admit.

Now morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime
Advancing, sow'd the earth with Orient pearl.

With thee goes
Thy husband, him to follow thou art bound;
Where he abides, think there thy native soil.

Hear his sighs though mute;
Unskillful with what words to pray, let me
Interpret for him.

Thrice he assay'd, and, thrice in spite of scorn,
Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth.

A boundless continent,
Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of night
Starless expos'd.

Hung over her enamour'd, and beheld
Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep,
Shot forth peculiar graces.

The imperial ensign; which, full high advanced,
Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind.

Let none admire
That riches grow in hell; that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane.

If this fail,
The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble.

Comus (1637)

And feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce.

The timely dew of sleep
Now falling with soft slumb'rous weight inclines
Our eyelids.

O nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray
Warbl'st at eve, when all the woods are still.

There does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

Comus (1637)

As in an organ from one blast of wind
To many a row of pipes the soundboard breathes.

Attribution

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