Quotes from John Milton

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?

I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night, Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to reascend...

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.

What is dark within me, illumine.

Farewell Hope, and with Hope farewell Fear

This horror will grow mild, this darkness light.

Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind.

A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.

For so I created them free and free they must remain.

Into this wild Abyss/ The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--/ Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/ But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/ Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/ Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,--/ Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend/ Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross.

Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules Passions, desires, and fears, is more a king.

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones, The labor of an age in pilèd stones, Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a star-y-pointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere.

What honour that, But tedious waste of time, to sit and hear So many hollow compliments and lies.

With eyes Of conjugal attraction unreprov'd. Imparadised in one another's arms. With thee conversing I forget all time. And feel that I am happier than I know.

The end of all learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love and imitate Him.

Love Virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

Freely we serve, because freely we love.

But see! theVirgin blessed Hath laid her Babe to rest. Time is our tedious song should here have ending.

Immediate are the acts of God, more swift than time or motion.

Time, though in Eternity, applied To motion, measures all things durable By present, past, and future.

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.

Leaves have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the north - wind's breath, And stars to set; but all, Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!