Quotes from John Milton

Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.

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

life is not about what we see, it is about the way it goes.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.

Reason also is choice.

So spake the fiend, and with necessity, The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.

Sweet bird, that shun the noise of folly, most musical, most melancholy!

Taste this, and be henceforth among the Gods thyself a Goddess.

There is no truth sure enough to justify persecution.

Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth.

What does not destroy me makes me strong.

What hath night to do with sleep?

For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.

Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.

Solitude sometimes is best society.

Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.

Awake, arise or be for ever fall'n.

Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss

All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.

I will not deny but that the best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words.

Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep...

Innocence, Once Lost, Can Never Be Regained. Darkness, Once Gazed Upon, Can Never Be Lost.

Me miserable! Which way shall I fly Infinite wrath and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep, Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.