John Milton Quotes on Time (11 Quotes)

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold, And speckled vanity Will sicken soon and die.

Our torments also may in length of time Become our elements.

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

Cyriac, 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 Today deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth, that after no repenting draws Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intends, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good what leads the nearest way For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains, And disapproves that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.

A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, Where armies whole have sunk the parching air Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire. Thither by harpy-footed Furies hal'd, At certain revolutions all the damn'd Are brought, and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes,extremes by change more fierce From beds of raging fire to starve in ice Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round, Periods of time thence hurried back to fire.

Some say no evil thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine, Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.

With eyes Of conjugal attraction unreprovd. Imparadised in one anothers arms. With thee conversing I forget all time. And feel that I am happier than I know.

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

Prudence is that virtue by which we discern what is proper to be done under the various circumstances of time and place.

With thee conversing I forget all time, All seasons, and their change, all please alike. Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, With charm of earliest birds pleasant the sun When first on this delightful land he spreads His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glist'ring with dew fragrant the fertile earth After soft showers and sweet the coming on Of grateful ev'ning mild then silent night With this her solemn bird and this fair moon, And these the gems of heaven, her starry train But neither breath of morn when she ascends With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower, Glist'ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers, Nor grateful ev'ning mild, nor silent night With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.

By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far distance, true colours and shapes.