Quotes by Milton, John

"What call thou solitude? Is not the earth with various living creatures, and the air replenished, and all these at thy command to come and play before thee?"

Milton, John on solitude   

"To be blind is not miserable; not to be able to bear blindness, that is miserable."

Milton, John on blindness   

"O loss of sight, of thee I most complain! Blind among enemies, O worse than chains, dungeon or beggary, or decrepit age! Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, and all her various objects of delight annulled, which might in part my grief have eased. Inferior to the vilest now become of man or worm; the vilest here excel me, they creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed to daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong, within doors, or without, still as a fool, in power of others, never in my own; scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half."

Milton, John on blindness   

"Deep versed in books and shallow in himself."

Milton, John on books - reading   

"A good book is the precious life-blood of the master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond."

Milton, John on books - reading   

"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. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men."

Milton, John on books - reading   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image, but thee who destroys a good book, kills reason itself."

Milton, John on books - reading   

"Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a certain potency of life in them, to be as active as the soul whose progeny they are; they preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of the living intellect that bred them."

Milton, John on books - reading   

"As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye."

Milton, John on censorship   

"Fear of change perplexes monarchs."

Milton, John on change   

"He that has light within his own clear breast may sit in the center, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts benighted walks under the mid-day sun;"

Milton, John on character   

"'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity. She that has that is clad in complete steel, and like a quivered nymph with arrows keen may trace huge forests and unharbored heaths, infamous hills and sandy perilous wilds, where through the sacred rays of chastity, no savage fierce, bandit, or mountaineer will dare to soil her virgin purity."

Milton, John on chastity   

"The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day."

Milton, John on childhood   

"Tears such as angels weep."

Milton, John on tears   

"Taste this, and be henceforth among the Gods thyself a Goddess."

Milton, John on temptation   

"Virtue that wavers is not virtue."

Milton, John on virtue
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"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."

Milton, John on virtue   

"Let none admire that riches grow in hell; that soil may best deserve the precious bane."

Milton, John on wealth   

"Those graceful acts, those thousand decencies, that daily flow from all her words and actions, mixed with love and sweet compliance, which declare unfeigned union of mind, or in us both one soul."

Milton, John on wives   

"Let those who would write heroic poems make their life an heroic poem."

Milton, John on writers and writing   

"Childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day."

Milton, John on youth   

"This is the month, and this the happy morn, wherein the Son of heaven's eternal King, of wedded Maid and Virgin Mother born, our great redemption from above did bring."

Milton, John on christmas   

"Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows."

Milton, John on communication   

"When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for."

Milton, John on complaints and complaining   

"With thee conversing I forget all time."

Milton, John on conversation   

"Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity."

Milton, John on death
3 fans of this quote   

"How gladly would I meet mortality, my sentence, and be earth in sensible! how glad would lay me down, as in my mother's lap! There I should rest, and sleep secure."

Milton, John on death   

"He that has light within his own cleer brestMay sit ith center, and enjoy bright day,But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughtsBenighted walks under the mid-day Sun;Himself is his own dungeon. "

Milton, John on uncategorised   

"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. "

Milton, John on uncategorised   

"For man he seemsIn all his lineaments, though in his faceThe glimpses of his Fathers glory shine. "

Milton, John on uncategorised   

"To speak when there is nothing to be said: this is imprudence. To be silent when there is something to be said: this is deception. To speak without paying attention to the expression on the person's face: this is called blindness. "

Milton, John on blindness