John Milton Quotes
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Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise. That last infirmity of noble mind. To scorn delights, and live laborious days.
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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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No war or battle sound Was heard the world around.
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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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...how wearisom Eternity so spent in worship paid To whom we hate. Let us not then pursue By force impossible, by leave obtain'd Unacceptable, though in Heav'n, our state Of splendid vassalage, but rather seek Our own good from our selves, and from our own Live to our selves, though in this vast recess, Free, and to none accountable, preferring Hard liberty before the easie yoke Of servile Pomp
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O execrable son! so to aspire Above his brethren, to himself assuming Authority usurped, from God not given. He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation; but man over men He made not lord; such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free.
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Sable-vested Night, eldest of things.
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Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live.
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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?
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To be blind is not miserable; not to be able to bear blindness, that is miserable.
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Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,Most musical, most melancholy!
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If the will, which in the law of our nature, were withdrawn from our memory, fancy, understanding, and reason, no other hell could equal, for a spiritual being, what we should then feel from the anarchy of our powers. It would be conscious madness,--a horrid thought!
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And storied windows richly dight,Casting a dim religious light.There let the pealing organ blow,To the full-voiced choir below,In service high, and anthems clearAs may, with sweetness, through mine earDissolve me into ecstasies,And bring all heaven before mine eyes.
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What reinforcement we may gain from hope; If not, what resolution from despair.
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It was that fatal and perfidious bark, Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark.
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Day and night, Seed-time and harvest, heat and hoary frost Shall hold their course, till fire purge all things new.
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Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,And Laughter, holding both his sides.Come, and trip it, as you go.On the light fantastic toe.
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It was the winter wildWhile the Heav'n-born childAll meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies.
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Ornate rhetoric thought out of the rule of Plato... To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less subtle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate.
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In mirth that after no repenting draws.
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But peaceful was the night Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began.
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So he with difficulty and labour hard Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour he.
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If at great things thou would'st arrive, Get riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap, Not difficult, if thou hearken to me; Riches are mine, fortune is in my hand, They whom I favor thrive in wealth amain, While virtue, valor, wisdom, sit in want.
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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.