John Milton Quotes

Though all winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple, who ever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter.

The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. / What matter where, if I be still the same...

But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to?

Farewell happy fields,
Where joy forever dwells: Hail, horrors, hail.

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.

Inflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.

Now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain
Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes
That witnessed huge affliction and dismay
Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate:
At once as far as angels ken he views
The dismal situation waste and wild,
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulfur unconsumed.

No man [...] can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free, being the image and resemblance of God himself.

The wife, where danger or dishonor lurks, safest and seemliest by her husband stays, who guards her, or with her the worst endures.

Yet I argue not
Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate one jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer
Right onward.

"A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit" —

God does not need man nor his won works.

Promiscuous reading is necessary to the constituting of human nature.

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale.

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit and flower,
Glistening with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers, and sweet the coming on
of grateful Evening mild; the silent Night,
With this her solumn bird and hisfair Moon,
And these the gems of Heaven, their starry train;
But neither breath of morn nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower
Glistening with dew, nor fragrance after shower,
Nor grateful Evening mild, nor silent Night,
With this her solumn bird, nor walk by Moon,
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet