Quotes from John Milton

High on a throne of royal state, which far

The wife, where danger or dishonor lurks, safest and seemliest by her husband stays, who guards her, or with her the worst endures.

Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse, But Heav'ns free Love dealt equally to all? Be then his Love accurst, since love or hate, To me alike, it deals eternal woe. Nay

Listen where thou art sitting Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of Lillies knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair

And ignominie, yet to glorie aspires   Vain glorious, and through infamie seeks fame:   Therfore Eternal silence be thir doome.

So farwel Hope, and with Hope farwel Fear, Farwel Remorse: all Good to me is lost; Evil be thou my Good; by thee at least Divided Empire with Heav'ns King I hold By thee, and more then half perhaps will reigne; As Man ere long, and this new World shall know. Thus

He who receives Light from above, from the Fountain of Light, No other doctrine needs, though granted true; But these are false, or little else but dreams, Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.

My voice thou oft hast heard and hast not feared, But oft rejoiced

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure; and, in my choyce, To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav'n.

witness- Heaven, What love sincere and reverence in my heart I bear thee

Thou therefore on these Herbs, and Fruits, and Flow'rs Feed first, on each Beast next, and Fish, and Fowl, No homely morsels, and whatever thing The Scyth of Time mows down, devour unspar'd, Till I in Man residing through the Race, His thoughts, his looks, words, actions all infect, And season him thy last and sweetest prey.

The mind is its own place, and in it self Can

The wary fiend stood on the brink of hell, pondering his voyage

Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom...

Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n.

So spake Israel's true king, and to the Fiend Made answer meet, that made void all his wiles. So fares it, when with truth falsehood contends.

a dark Illimitable ocean, without bound, Without dimension; where length, breadth, and height, And time, and place are lost;

All is best, though we oft doubt, what the unsearchable dispose, of highest wisdom brings about.

Mortals that would follow me, Love virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or if virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her.

So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed In serpent, inmate bad! and toward Eve Addressed his way: not with indented wave, Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear, Circular base of rising folds, that towered Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes; With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape And lovely; never since of serpent-kind Lovelier…

and miserable it is to be to others cause of misery...

God does not need man nor his won works.

Shalt thou give law to God, shalt thou dispute With Him the points of liberty who made Thee what thou art and formed the pow'rs of Heav'n Such as He pleased and circumscribed their being?

I thence invoke my thy aid to my adventurous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar above the Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.