254 Famous Quotes by John Milton
12/9/1608 - 11/8/1674
Also Known As:
Johnny Milton
Milton, John
Professions:
Information:
About John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost.
Milton's poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. Writing in English, Latin, and Italian, he achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated Areopagitica, is among history's most influential and impassioned defenses of free speech and freedom of the press.
William Hayley's 1796 biography called him the "greatest English author," and he remains generally regarded "as one of the preeminent writers in the English language," though critical reception has oscillated in the centuries since his death. Samuel Johnson praised Paradise Lost as "a poem which...with respect to design may claim the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among the productions of the human mind," though Johnson described Milton's politics as those of an "acrimonious and surly republican".
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Oh, shame to men! devil with devil damn'd
Firm concord holds, men only disagree
Of creatures rational.
Unity
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. II, l. 496)
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Servant of God, well done, well hast thou fought
The better fight.
Service
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VI, l. 29)
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Left that command
Sole daughter of his voice.
Duty
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 652)
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For I no sooner in my heart divin'd
My heart, which by a secret harmony
Still moves with thine, joined in connection sweet.
Sympathy
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. X, l. 357)
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His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering but not beneath his shoulders broad.
Royalty
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 300)
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Without his rod revers'd,
And backward mutters of dissevering power.
Power
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Comus (l. 816)
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Hast thou betrayed my credulous innocence
With vizor'd falsehood and base forgery?
Treachery
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Comus (l. 697)
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Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the Arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne.
Oratory
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Regained (bk. IV, l. 267)
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With thee conversing I forget all time:
All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Conversation
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 639), Eve speaking to Adam
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Here may we reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell.
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
Ambition
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. I, l. 263)
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But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? who aspires must down as low
As high he soar'd, obnoxious first and last
To basest things.
Ambition
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 168)
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If at great things thou would'st arrive,
Get riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap,
Not difficult, if thou hearken to me;
Riches are mine, fortune is in my hand,
They whom I favor thrive in wealth amain,
While virtue, valor, wisdom, sit in want.
Ambition
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Regained (bk. II, l. 426)
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So spake the Fiend, and with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deed.
Necessity
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 393)
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Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence.
Greece
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Regained (bk. IV, l. 240)
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Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses.
Cookery
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: L'Allegro (l. 85)
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And in requital ope his leathern scrip,
And show me simples of a thousand names,
Telling their strange and vigorous faculties.
Medicine
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Comus (l. 626)
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The oracles are dumb,
No voice or hideous hum
Runs thro' the arched roof in words deceiving.
Oracle
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Hymn on Christ's Nativity (l. 173)
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These evils I deserve, and more
. . . .
Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon,
Whose ear is ever open, and his eye
Gracious to re-admit the suppliant.
Forgiveness
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Samson Agonistes (l. 1,170)
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Experience, next, to thee I owe,
Best guide; not following thee, I had remain'd
In ignorance; thou open'st wisdom's way,
And giv'st access, though secret she retire.
Experience
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 807)
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