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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

Among unequals what society
Can sort, what harmony, or true delight?

Not to know me argues yourselves unknown,
The lowest of your throng.

And in requital ope his leathern scrip,
And show me simples of a thousand names,
Telling their strange and vigorous faculties.

Comus (1637)

Zeal and duty are not slow
But on occasion's forelock watchful wait.

Paradise Regained (1671)

Chaos, that reigns here
In double night of darkness and of shades.

Comus (1637)

Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown
In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities,
Where most may wonder at the workmanship.

Comus (1637)

Back to thy punishment,
False fugitive and to thy speed add wings.

Farewell, remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good.

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.

Comus (1637)

The great luminary
Aloof the vulgar constellations thick,
That from his lordly eye keep distance due,
Dispenses light from far.

Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy forever dwells; hail, horrors!

Under spreading ensigns moving nigh, in slow
But firm battalion.

Who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?

Areopagitica (1644)

Hither, as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing in their golden urns draw light,
And hence the morning planet gilds her horns.

A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,
And pavement stars.

Anon, out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose, like an exhalation.

The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures.

Long is the way
And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.

Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth.

Il Penseroso (1631)

With high words, that bore
Semblance of worth, not substance.

Attribution

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