John Milton

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!

— John Milton

Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason's garb, counseled ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth, not peace.

— John Milton

And when night, darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.

— John Milton

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we sleep and when we awake.

— John Milton

Nor aught availed him now to have built in heaven high towers; nor did he scrape by all his engines, but was headlong sent with his industrious crew to build in hell.

— John Milton

Lords are lordliest in their wine.

— John Milton

Adam inquires concerning celestial motions, is doubtfully answered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowledge.

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

Deep versed in books and shallow in himself.

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

Fear of change perplexes monarchs.

— John Milton

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;

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

With thee conversing I forget all time.

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

What wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? 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.

— John Milton

It is not miserable to be blind; it is miserable to be incapable of enduring blindness.

— John Milton

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.

— John Milton

Not to know me argues yourselves unknown.

— John Milton

None can love freedom heartily, but good men... the rest love not freedom, but license.

— John Milton

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

— John Milton

A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.

— John Milton

Our country is where ever we are well off.

— John Milton

Where no hope is left, is left no fear.

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love Him and imitate Him.

— John Milton

A crown, golden in show is but a wreath of thorns.

— John Milton

License they mean when they cry liberty.

— John Milton

Reason also is choice.

— John Milton

These two imparadised in one another's arms, the happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill of bliss on bliss.

— John Milton

Sweet bird, that shun the noise of folly, most musical, most melancholy!

— John Milton

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

— John Milton

Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.

— John Milton

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.

— John Milton

Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, sober steadfast, and demure, all in a robe of darkest grain, flowing with majestic train.

— John Milton

They also serve who only stand and wait.

— John Milton

Peace has her victories which are no less renowned than war.

— John Milton

How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, but musical as is Apollo's lute, and a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, where no crude surfeit reigns.

— John Milton

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.

— John Milton

Prudence is the virtue by which we discern what is proper to do under various circumstances in time and place.

— John Milton

What reinforcement we may gain from hope; If not, what resolution from despair.

— John Milton

A short retirement urges a sweet return.

— John Milton

And, re-assembling our afflicted powers, consult how we may henceforth most offend.

— John Milton

Few sometimes may know, when thousands err.

— John Milton

From man or angel the great Architect did wisely to conceal, and not divulge his secrets to be scanned by them who ought rather admire; or if they list to try conjecture, he his fabric of the heavens left to their disputes, perhaps to move his laughter at their quaint opinions wide hereafter, when they come to model heaven calculate the stars, how they will wield the mighty frame, how build, unbuild, contrive to save appearances, how gird the sphere with centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, and epicycle, orb in orb.

— John Milton

But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts benighted walks under the mid-day sun; Himself is his own dungeon.

— John Milton

He who reins within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king

— John Milton

Nothing profits more than self-esteem, grounded on what is just and right.

— John Milton

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?

— John Milton

Tears such as angels weep.

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

Virtue that wavers is not virtue.

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

Childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day.

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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.

— John Milton

Hail bounteous May that dost inspire Mirth and youth and warm desire!

— John Milton

Love in marriage cannot live nor subsist unless it be mutual; and where love cannot be, there can be left of wedlock nothing but the empty husk of an outside matrimony, as undelightful and unpleasing to God as any other kind of hypocrisy.

— John Milton

Now conscience wakes dispair that slumber'd, wakes the bitter memory of what he was, what is, and what must be

— John Milton