John Milton Quotes
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New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ Large.
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He scarce had ceased when the superior fiend Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield Ethereal temper, massy, large and round, Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At evening from the top of Fésolè, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe.
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Sweet intercourse of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow.
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Thence to the famous orators repair, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democratie, Shook the arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece, To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne.
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For neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, except to God alone.
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Promiscuous reading is necessary to the constituting of human nature. The attempt to keep out evil doctrine by licensing is like the exploit of that gallant man who thought to keep out the crows by shutting the park gate.
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Aristotle ... imputed this symphony of the heavens ... this music of the spheres to Pythagorus. ... But Pythagoras alone of mortals is said to have heard this harmony ... If our hearts were as pure, as chaste, as snowy as Pythagoras' was, our ears would resound and be filled with that supremely lovely music of the wheeling stars.
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Solitude sometimes is best society.
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Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam.
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Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.
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Let none admire that riches grow in hell; that soil may best deserve the precious bane.
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And looks commercing with the skies,Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.
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For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower, among good authors is accounted Plagiarè.
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Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded, But must be current, and the good thereof Consists in mutual and partaken bliss.
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Rhime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter...the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimeing.
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O why did God, Creator wise, that peopled highest heav'n With Spirits masculine, create at last This novelty on earth, this fair defect Of nature, and not fill the world at once With men as angels without feminine, Or find some other way to generate Mankind?
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So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity, That, when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lacky her, Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.
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And what is faith, love, virtue unassayed Alone, without exterior help sustained?
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Opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.
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Knowledge forbidden? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord Envy them that? Can it be sin to know, Can it be death? And do they only stand By ignorance? Is that their happy state, The proof of their obedience and their faith? O fair foundation laid whereon to build Their ruin!
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Is it true, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer the most? That the strongest wander furthest and most hopelessly are lost? That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain? That the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain?
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My rising is thy fall
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Calm of mind, all passion spent.
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Deep-versed in books and shallow in himself.