John Milton Quotes
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O nightingale, that on yon bloomy sprayWarbl'st at eve, when all the woods are still.
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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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Of which all Europe rings from side to side.
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For no falsehood can endure Touch of celestial temper.
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For men to tell how human life began Is hard; for who himself beginning knew?
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This is the month, and this the happy morn,Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,Our great redemption from above did bring;For so the holy sages once did sing,That He our deadly forfeit should release,And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.
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Justice divine Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries.
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Heaven, the seat of bliss, Brooks not the works of violence and war.
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In mirth that after no repenting draws.
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Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul And lap it in Elysium.
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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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Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,Most musical, most melancholy!
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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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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.
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The power of Kings and Magistrates is nothing else, but what is only derivative, transferrd and committed to them in trust from the People, to the Common good of them all, in whom the power yet remaines fundamentally, and cannot be takn from them, without a violation of thir natural birthright.
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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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How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smiled!
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A death-like sleep, A gentle wafting to immortal life.
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A man may be ungrateful, but the human race is not so.
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A grateful mind/ By owing owes not, but still pays, at once/ Indebted and discharg'd.
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The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveller.
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Hear all ye angels, progeny of light, Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.
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Nor think thou with wind Of æry threats to awe whom yet with deeds Thou canst not.
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Cyriack, whose Grandsire on the Royal BenchOf British Themis, with no mean applausePronounced and in his volumes taught our Laws,Which others at their Bar so often wrench