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".
He's gone, and who knows how may he report
Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
News
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Samson Agonistes (l. 1,350)
|
These false pretexts and varnished colours failing,
Rare in thy guilt how foul must thou appear.
Guilt
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Samson Agonistes (l. 901)
|
Her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat;
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe
That all was lost.
Sin
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 780)
|
|
Law can discover sin, but not remove,
Save by those shadowy expiations weak.
Sin
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. XII, l. 290)
|
O welcome pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!
Faith
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Comus (l. 213)
|
That in such righteousness
To them by faith imputed they may find
Justification towards God, and peace
Of conscience.
Faith
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. XII, l. 294)
|
Yet I argue not
Again Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of right or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward.
Faith
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: To Cyriack Skinner
|
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprov'd pleasures free.
Merriment
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: L'Allegro (l. 38)
|
Who can enjoy alone?
Or all enjoying what contentment find?
Enjoyment
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VIII, l. 365)
|
|
|
For Solomon, he lived at ease, and full
Of honour, wealth, high fare, aimed not beyond
Higher design than to enjoy his state.
Enjoyment
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Regained (bk. II, l. 201)
|
For smiles from reason flow
To brute deny'd, and are of love the food.
Smiles
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 239)
|
A smile that glow'd
Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.
Smiles
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VIII, l. 618)
|
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack or the barn door
Stoutly struts his dames before.
Cocks
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: L'Allegro
|
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull Night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise.
Larks
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: L'Allegro (l. 41)
|
And now the herald lark
Left his ground-nest, high tow'ring to descry
The morn's approach, and greet her with his song.
Larks
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Regained (bk. II, l. 279)
|
The swan, with arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet.
Swans
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VI, l. 438)
|
Thus does the white swan, as he lies on the wet grass, when the
Fates summon him, sing at the fords of Maeander.
Swans
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VI, l. 438)
|
So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse
Met ever, and to shameful silence brought,
Yet gives not o'er though desperate of success.
Perseverance
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Regained (bk. IV, l. 21)
|
I sat me down to watch upon a bank
With ivy canopied and interwove
With flaunting honeysuckle.
Honeysuckles
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Comus (l. 543)
|
They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet
Quaff immortality and joy.
Eating
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. V, l. 637)
|
Govern well thy appetite, lest Sin
Surprise thee, and her black attendant Death.
Appetite
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VII, l. 546)
|
If all the world
Should in a pet of temp'rance, feed on pulse,
Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,
Th' All-giver would be unthank'd, would be unprais'd.
Temperance
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Comus (l. 720)
|
Impostor; do not charge most innocent Nature,
As if she would her children should be riotous
With her abundance; she, good cateress,
Means her provision only to the good,
That live according to her sober laws,
And holy dictate of spare temperance.
Temperance
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Comus (l. 762)
|
Well observe
The rule of Not too much, by temperance taught
In what thou eat'st and drink'st.
Temperance
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. XI, l. 531)
|
