John Milton Quotes

606 Sourced Quotes

All hope is lost of my reception into grace; what worse? For where no hope is left, is left no fear.

John Milton
And sing to those that hold the vital shears; And turn the adamantine spindle round, On which the fate of gods and men is wound.

John Milton
O Sacred, Wise, and Wisdom-giving Plant, Mother of Science...

John Milton
Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopolized and traded in by tickets and statutes and standards. We must not think to make a staple commodity of all the knowledge in the land, to mark and license it like our broadcloth and our woolpacks.

John Milton
The virtuous mind that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.

John Milton
As therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowledge of good and evil?

John Milton
I must not quarrel with the will
Of highest dispensation, which herein,
Haply had ends above my reach to know.

John Milton
O impotence of mind, in body strong! But what is strength without a double share Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdensome, Proudly secure, yet liable to fall By weakest subtleties, not made to rule, But to subserve where wisdom bears command.

John Milton
Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery,
Death's harbinger.

John Milton
Subdue By force, who reason for their law refuse, Right reason for their law.

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

John Milton
Equally inured by moderation either state to bear, prosperous or adverse.

John Milton
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn.

John Milton
O when meet now Such pairs, in love and mutual honour joined?

John Milton
It were a journey like the path to heaven, To help you find them.

John Milton
Virtue that wavers is not virtue, but vice revolted from itself, and after a while returning. The actions of just and pious men do not darken in their middle course.

John Milton
Thou sun, said I, fair light, And thou enlightened earth so fresh and gay, Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains, And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell - Tell if ye saw, how came I thus, how here?

John Milton
The other shape, If shape it might be call'd that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb; Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd, For each seem'd either,--black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. Satan was now at hand.

John Milton
And in their motions harmony divine
So smoothes her charming tones, that God's own ear
Listens delighted.

John Milton
When thou attended gloriously from heaven, Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send Thy summoning archangels to proclaim Thy dread tribunal.

John Milton
Nor from hell One step no more than from himself can fly By change of place.

John Milton
For God will deign to visit oft the dwellings of just men -- delighted, and with frequent intercourse -- thither will send his winged messengers on errants of supernal grace.

John Milton
O visions ill foreseen! Better had I Liv'd ignorant of future, so had borne My part of evil only.

John Milton
Thy actions to thy words accord; thy words
To thy large heart give utterance due; thy heart;
Contains of good, wise, just, the perfect shape.

John Milton
Immediate are the acts of God, more swift than time or motion.

John Milton
To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull Night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise.

John Milton
When we speak of knowing God, it must be understood with reference to man's limited powers of comprehension. God, as He really is, is far beyond man's imagination, let alone understanding. God has revealed only so much of Himself as our minds can conceive and the weakness of our nature can bear.

John Milton
O madness to think use of strongest wines And strongest drinks our chief support of health, When God with these forbidden made choice to rear His mighty champion, strong above compare, Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.

John Milton
The very essence of truth is plainness and brightness; the darkness and crookedness is our own. The wisdom of God created understanding, fit and proportionable to truth, the object and end of it, as the eye to the thing visible. If our understanding have a film of ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing on other false glitterings, what is that to truth?

John Milton
But that from us aught should ascend to Heav'n So prevalent as to concern the mind Of God, high-bless'd, or to incline His will, Hard to belief may seem; yet this will prayer.

John Milton