John Milton Quotes

No institution which does not continually test its ideals, techniques and measure of accomplishment can claim real vitality.

Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks and rivers wide Towers and battlements it sees Bosom'd high in tufted trees, Where perhaps some beauty lies, The cynosure of neighboring eyes.

More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchang'd To hoarse or mute, though fall'n on evil days, On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues.

Our reason is our law.

Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn.

Incens'd with indignation Satan stood Unterrify'd, and like a comet burn'd That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war.

Wealth and honours, which most men pursue, easily change masters; they desert to the side which excels in virtue, industry, and endurance of toil, and they abandon the slothful.

O fleeting joys Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes!

Enflamed 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.

Fame is the last infirmity of the human mind.

I hate when vice can bolt her arguments, And virtue has no tongue to check her pride.

Those whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme

Heav'nly love shall outdoo Hellish hate

The teachers of our law, and to propose What might improve my knowledge or their own.

Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself.

Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.

Still paying, still to owe. Eternal woe!

What honour that, But tedious waste of time, to sit and hear So many hollow compliments and lies.

What am I pondering, you ask? So help me God, immortality.

Who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers?

For God will deign to visit oft the dwellings of just men -- delighted, and with frequent intercourse -- thither will send his winged messengers on errants of supernal grace.

So much I feel my genial spirits droop, My hopes all flat, nature within me seems In her functions weary of herself.

And to the faithful: death, the gate of life.

The conquer'd, also, and enslaved by war, Shall, with their freedom lost, all virtue lose.

But see! theVirgin blessed Hath laid her Babe to rest. Time is our tedious song should here have ending.

Hear all ye angels, progeny of light, Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.

Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves.

I fled, and cry'd out, Death; Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd From all her caves, and back resounded, Death.

Dark with excessive bright.

Ere the blabbing eastern scout, The nice morn, on th' Indian steep From her cabin'd loop-hole peep.

Immediate are the acts of God, more swift than time or motion.

Execute their airy purposes.

Cyriack, whose Grandsire on the Royal Bench Of British Themis, with no mean applause Pronounced and in his volumes taught our Laws, Which others at their Bar so often wrench

But now my task is smoothly done, I can fly, or I can run Quickly to the green earth's end, Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend, And from thence can soar as soon To the corners of the Moon.

Time, though in Eternity, applied To motion, measures all things durable By present, past, and future.

By night the Glass Of Galileo ... observes Imagin'd Land and Regions in the Moon.

To know that which lies before us in daily life is the prime wisdom.

There is no truth sure enough to justify persecution.

Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones.

If there be any difference among professed believers as to the sense of Scripture, it is their duty to tolerate such difference in each other, until God shall have revealed the truth to all.

Boast not of what thou would'st have done, but do.

Hope allows us to bid farewell to fear.

Virtue hath no tongue to check vice's pride.

Who knows not Circe, The daughter of the Sun , whose charmed cup Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape, And downward fell into a groveling swine?

So little knows Any, but God alone, but perverts best things To worst abuse, or to their meanest use.

Temper justice with mercy.

Her virtue and the conscience of her worth, That would be woo'd, and not unsought be won.

So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair that ever since in love's embraces met -- Adam, the goodliest man of men since born his sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.

Arms on armour clashing bray'd Horrible discord, and the madding wheels Of brazen chariots rag'd: dire was the noise Of conflict.

His form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appear'd Less than archangel ruin'd, and th' excess Of glory obscur'd.