John Milton Quotes (574 Quotes)

Yet I shall temper so Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most Them fully satisfy'd, and thee appease.

Who, if we knew
What we receive, would either no accept
Life offered, or soon beg to lay it down;
Glad to be so dismissed in peace.

Whence and what art thou, execrable shape.

As one who long in populous city pent, Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air.

Those graceful acts, Those thousand decencies that daily flow From all her words and actions.

Nor aught availed him now to have built in heaven high towers nor did he scrape by all his engines, but was headlong sent with his industrious crew to build in hell.

Like that self-begotten bird In the Arabian woods embost, That no second knows nor third, And lay ere while a holocaust.

This is the month, and this the happy morn, Wherein the Son of Heavens eternal King, Of wedded maid, and virgin mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring For so the holy sages once did sing, That He our deadly forfeit should release, And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.

Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold Ev'n them who kept Thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, Forget not In Thy book record their groans Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To Heav'n. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant that from these may grow A hundred-fold, who having learned Thy way Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.

Peace hath her victories No less renowned than war.

I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men.

Rhetoric . . . To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less subtle and fine, but more simple, sensuous and passionate.

So spake the grisly Terror.

Such as may make thee search the coffers round.

I took it for a faery vision Of some gay creatures of the element, That in the colours of the rainbow live, And play i' th' plighted clouds.

From morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day and with the setting sun Dropp'd from the Zenith like a falling star.

But whence to thee this zeal?

Yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible.

Confidence imparts a wonderful inspiration to its possessor

Wherefore with thee Came not all hell broke loose

Where more is meant than meets the ear.

Virtue that wavers is not virtue.

Heard so oft In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge Of battle.

For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrowers, among good authors is accounted Plagiar.

Moping melancholy And moon-struck madness.

At shut of evening flowers.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad Silence accompany'd for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale She all night long her amorous descant sung Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament With living sapphires Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

The never-ending flight Of future days.

It were a journey like the path to heaven, To help you find them.

For what can war, but endless war, still breed?

And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons.

But peaceful was the night Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began. The winds with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kiss, Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. The stars, with deep amaze, Stand fixed in steadfast gaze, Bending one way their precious influence And will not take their flight, For all the morning light, Or Lucifer that often warmed them thence But in their glimmering orbs did glow, Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. And, though the shady gloom Had given day her room, The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame, As his inferior flame The new-enlightened world no more should need He saw a greater Sun appear Than his bright throne or burning axeltree could bear.

Thus with the year Seasons return but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

The great Emathian conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Went to the ground.

The olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.

Few sometimes may know, when thousands err.

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

But all was false and hollow though his tongue Dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, 4 to perplex and dash Maturest counsels.

Forget thyself to marble.

Litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees.

His tongue dropt manna, and could make the worse appear the better reason

Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled Yea, even that which mischief meant most harm Shall in the happy trial prove most glory.

Before mine eyes in opposition sits Grim Death, my son and foe.

And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.

Indu'd With sanctity of reason.

Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offence returning, to regain Love once possess'd.

Biochemically, love is just like eating large amounts of chocolate.

With a smile that glow'd Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.

Oft-times nothing profits more Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right Well managd.