John Milton Quotes

606 Sourced Quotes

Doth God exact day-labour, light denied,
I fondly ask; but patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best, his state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.

John Milton
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

John Milton
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

John Milton
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.

John Milton
None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.

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

John Milton
They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet Quaff immortality and joy.

John Milton
None But such as are good men can give good things, And that which is not good, is not delicious To a well-govern'd and wise appetite.

John Milton
It was from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world.

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

John Milton
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view.

John Milton
With diadem and sceptre high advanced,
The lower still I fall; only supreme
In misery; such joy ambition finds.

John Milton
The earth, though in comparison of heaven so small, nor glistering, may of solid good contain more plenty than the sun, that barren shines.

John Milton
Suffering for truth's sake Is fortitude to highest victory, And to the faithful death the gate of life.

John Milton
A spot like which perhaps Astronomer in the Sun's lucent Orbe Through his glaz'd Optic Tube yet never saw.

John Milton
They are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and don't permit others to unite those dissevered pieces which are yet wanting to the body of Truth.

John Milton
But when Lust By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, But most by lewd and lavish arts of sin, Lets in defilement to the inward parts, The soul grows clotted by contagion, Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose The divine property of her first being.

John Milton
United thoughts and counsels, equal hope And hazard in the glorious enterprise.

John Milton
On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder.

John Milton
No man who knows ought, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were borne free, being the image and resemblance of God himself, and were by privilege above all the creatures, born to command and not to obey.

John Milton
If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man…And who shall silence all the airs and madrigals, that whisper softness in chambers?

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

John Milton
Loneliness is the first thing which God's eye named not good.

John Milton
So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life.

John Milton
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn door,
Stoutly struts his dames before,
Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn.

John Milton
Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold.

John Milton
Him that yon soars on golden wing, guiding the fiery-wheelèd throne, the Cherub Contemplation.

John Milton
Attic tragedies of stateliest and most regal argument.

John Milton
License they mean when they cry, Liberty!
For who loves that must first be wise and good.

John Milton
How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets
Where no crude surfeit reigns.

John Milton