John Milton Quotes
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God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.
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If weakness may excuse, What murderer, what traitor, parricide, Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it? All wickedness is weakness; that plea, therefore, With God or man will gain thee no remission.
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Take heed lest passion sway Thy judgement to do aught, which else free will Would not admit.
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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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On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder.
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Accuse not nature: she hath done her part; Do thou but thine.
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Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.
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Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures Whilst the landscape round it measures, Russet lawns and fallows grey, Where the nibbling flocks do stray, Mountains on whose barren breast The labouring clouds do often rest; Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
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The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
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The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous humRuns through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine,With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.No nightly trance or breathed spellInspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
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For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.
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Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?
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The first and wisest of them all professed To know this only, that he nothing knew.
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Hide me from day's garish eye,While the bee with honied thigh,That at her flowery work doth sing,And the waters murmuringWith such consort as they keep,Entice the dewy-feathered sleep.
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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.
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So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature: This is old age; but then thou must outlive Thy youth, thy strength, thy beauty, which will change To withered weak and grey.
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Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.
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Innumerable as the stars of night, Or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun Impearls on every leaf and every flower.
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Fate shall yield To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.
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I must not quarrel with the will Of highest dispensation, which herein, Haply had ends above my reach to know.