Quotes by John Milton

Shalt thou give law to God, shalt thou disputeWith Him the points of liberty who madeThee what thou art and formed the powrs of HeavnSuch as He pleased and circumscribed their being?

The goal of all learning is to repair the ruin of our first parents.

Now came still evening on, and twilight grayHad in her sober livery all things clad;Silence accompanyd; for beast and bird,They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;She all night long her amorous descant sung;Silence was pleasd. Now glowd the firmamentWith living sapphires; Hesperus, that ledThe starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,Rising in clouded majesty, at lengthApparent queen unveild her peerless light,And oer the dark her silver mantle threw.

Thou therefore on these Herbs, and Fruits, and FlowrsFeed first, on each Beast next, and Fish, and Fowl, No homely morsels, and whatever thingThe Scyth of Time mows down, devour unspard, Till I in Man residing through the Race, His thoughts, his looks, words, actions all infect, And season him thy last and sweetest prey.

Infernal world, and thou profoundest HellReceive thy new Possessor: One who bringsA mind not to be changd by Place or Time.The mind is its own place, and in it selfCan make a Heavn of Hell, a Hell of Heavn.

Neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible except to God alone.

Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposd /Labor, as to debar when we need /Refreshment, whether food, or talk between,/ food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse/Of looks and smiles, for smiles from Reason flow,/To brutes denied, and are of Love the food, Love not the lowest end of human life. For not to irksome toil, but to delight/ He made us, and delight to reason joind.

But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt,And by thir vices brought to servitude,Than to love Bondage more than Liberty,Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty;

O fairest of all creation, last and bestOf all Gods works, creature in whom excelledWhatever can to sight or thought be formed,Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,Defaced, deflowred, and now to death devote?

Solitude sometimes is best society.

Come let us haste, the stars grow high, But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky.

A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,And pavement stars—as starts to thee appearSoon in the galaxy, that milky wayWhich mightly as a circling zone thou seestPowderd wiht stars.

What hath night to do with sleep?

The mind is a universe and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

So dear to heaven is saintly chastity, That when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her, Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, And in clear dream, and solemn vision Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, Till oft converse with heavenly habitants Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape, The unpolluted temple of the mind, And turns it by degrees to the souls essence, Till all be made immortal

So spake the Seraph Abdiel faithful found,Among the faithless, faithful only hee;Among innumerable false, unmovd,Unshakn, unseducd, unterrifidHis Loyaltie he kept, his Love, his Zeale;Nor number, nor example with him wroughtTo swerve from truth, or change his constant mindThough single. From amidst them forth he passd,Long way through hostile scorn, which he susteindSuperior, nor of violence feard aught;And with retorted scorn his back he turndOn those proud Towrs to swift destruction doomd.

Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep...

Mortals that would follow me, Love virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or if virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her.

Mortals that would follow me, Love virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than they sphery chime; Or if virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her.

Luck is the residue of design.