John Milton Quotes
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Forget thyself to marble.
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How often from the steep Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard Celestial voices to the midnight air, Sole, or responsive each to other's note, Singing their great Creator?
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This is servitude, To serve the unwise.
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We read not that Christ ever exercised force but once; and that was to drive profane ones out of his Temple, not to force them in.
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Now the bright morning-star, Day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire Mirth, and youth, and warm desire! Woods and groves are of thy dressing; Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early song, And welcome thee, and wish thee long.
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Of four infernal rivers that disgorge/ Into the burning Lake their baleful streams;/Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate,/Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;/Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud/ Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon/ Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage./ Far off from these a slow and silent stream,/ Lethe the River of Oblivion rolls/ Her wat'ry Labyrinth whereof who drinks,/ Forthwith his former state and being forgets,/ Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
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Our state cannot be severed, we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.
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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.
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Hope elevates, and joy Brightens his crest.
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Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason's garb, counseled ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth, not peace.
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Thrones, dominions, princedoms, virtues, powers-- If these magnific titles yet remain Not merely titular.
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Alas! What boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely slighted Shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse; Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life.
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Or call up him that left half toldThe story of Cambuscan bold.
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Me miserable! Which way shall I fly Infinite wrath and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep, Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
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While the cock with lively dinScatters 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 hornCheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn.
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Just deeds are the best answer to injurious words.
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A grateful mind/ By owing owes not, but still pays, at once/ Indebted and discharg'd.
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Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
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Yet hold it more humane, more heav'nly, first, By winning words to conquer willing hearts, And make persuasion do the work of fear.
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All hell broke loose.
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Be strong, live happy and love, but first of all Him whom to love is to obey, and keep His great command!
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All seemed well pleased, all seemed, but were not all.
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A short retirement urges a sweet return.
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He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.