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".
There swift return
Diurnal, merely to officiate light
Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot.
Light
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. 8, l. 21)
|
Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven firstborn!
Or of th' eternal co-eternal beam,
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Light
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. III, l. 1)
|
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.
Spirits
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 678)
|
|
In her face excuse
Came prologue, and apology too prompt.
Faces
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 853)
|
|
Who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.
Victory
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. I, l. 648)
|
|
|
Or stars of morning, dew-drops which the sun
Impearls on every leaf and every flower.
Dew
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. V, l. 746)
|
|
|
So glistered the dire Snake, and into fraud
Led Eve, our credulous mother, to the Tree
Of Prohibition, root of all our woe.
Fraud
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 643)
|
Some cursed fraud
Of enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,
And me with thee hath ruined.
Fraud
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 904)
|
Perplexed and troubled at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope.
Fraud
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Regained (bk. IV, l. 1)
|
Direct
The clasping ivy where to climb.
Ivy
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 216)
|
Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still
air of delightful studies.
Study
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Reason of Church Government--Introduction (bk. II)
|
Then purg'd with euphrasy and rue
The visual nerve, for he had much to see.
Sight
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. XI, l. 414)
|
If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into
you.
Sight
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. XI, l. 414)
|
|
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Blindness
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Samson Agonistes (l. 67)
|
O dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark! total eclipse,
Without all hope of day.
Blindness
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Samson Agonistes (l. 80)
|
These eyes, tho' clear
To outward view of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot,
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
Against Heaven's hand or will, not bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward.
Blindness
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Sonnet XXII (l. 1)
|
Take heed lest passion sway
Thy judgment to do aught, which else fee will
Would not admit.
Passion
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VIII, l. 634)
|
Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.
Revenge
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 171)
|
If by fire
Of sooty coal th' empiric alchymist
Can turn, or holds it possible to turn,
Metals of drossiest ore to perfect gold.
Alchemy
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. V, l. 439)
|
And God made two great lights, great for their use
To man, the greater to have rule by day,
The less by night, altern.
Astronomy
Quotes, by John Milton , Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VII, l. 346)
|
