John Milton quotes
John Milton (1608–1674): English poet and civil servant. The library holds 507 quotes by John Milton, drawn from Paradise Lost, Comus, Paradise Regained and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Often about: life, faith, nature, time, art, power
The best-known John Milton quotes
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Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
Paradise Lost, Book iv. Line 677 -
Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv’st Live well: how long or short permit to heaven.
Paradise Lost, Book xi. Line 553 -
Ofttimes nothing profits more Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right.
Paradise Lost -
Nothing lovelier can be found In woman than to study household good, And good works in her husband to promote.
Paradise Lost -
What boots it at one gate to make defence, And at another to let in the foe?
Samson Agonistes, Line 560 -
Good the more Communicated more abundant grows.
Paradise Lost -
Where peace and rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all.
Paradise Lost, Bk. I -
Among unequals what society Can sort, what harmony, or true delight?
Paradise Lost, Book viii. Line 383 -
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change perplexes monarchs.
Paradise Lost, Book i. Line 597 -
As one who long in populous city pent, Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air.
Paradise Lost, Book ix. Line 445 -
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell; Better to reign in hell than serve in heav’n.
Paradise Lost -
The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
Paradise Lost, Bk. I -
For solitude sometimes is best society, And short retirement urges sweet return.
Paradise Lost, Book ix. Line 249 -
Revenge, at first though sweet, Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.
Paradise Lost, Bk. IX -
How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo’s lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets Where no crude surfeit reigns.
Comus, Line 476 -
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost. Evil, be thou my good.
Paradise Lost, Book iv. Line 108 -
Thence to the famous orators repair, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democratie, Shook the arsenal, and fulmin’d over Greece, To Macedon, and Artaxerxes’ throne.
Paradise Regained, Book iv. Line 267 -
Childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day.
Paradise Regained -
Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe.
Paradise Lost, Book i. Line 1 -
Smiles from reason flow, To brute denied, and are of love the food.
Paradise Lost, Bk. IX -
Neither man nor angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone, By His permissive will, through Heaven and Earth.
Paradise Lost, Bk. iii., Line 682 -
What though the field be lost? All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield.
Paradise Lost -
Innumerable as the stars of night, Or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun Impearls on every leaf and every flower.
Paradise Lost, Book v. Line 745 -
The strongest and the fiercest spirit That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair.
Paradise Lost, Bk. II -
Long is the way And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.
Paradise Lost, Bk. II -
Abashed the devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is, and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely.
Paradise Lost, Bk. IV -
Adam the goodliest man of men since born His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.
Paradise Lost, Book iv. Line 323 -
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse Without all hope of day!
Samson Agonistes, Line 80 -
But all was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropp’d manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash maturest counsels.
Paradise Lost, Book ii. Line 112 -
Beauty stands in the admiration only of weak minds Led captive. Cease to admire, and all her plumes Fall flat and shrink into a trivial toy, At every sudden slighting quite abashed.
Paradise Regained, Bk. II -
Thrice he assay’d, and thrice in spite of scorn Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth.
Paradise Lost, Book i. Line 619 -
And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.
L’Allegro, Line 67 -
Midnight brought on the dusky hour Friendliest to sleep and silence.
Paradise Lost, Bk. v., Line 667 -
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain, This pendent world, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.
Paradise Lost, Book ii. Line 1051 -
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded.
Paradise Lost, Book ii. Line 995 -
Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring.
Paradise Lost, Book iv. Line 750 -
Here we may reign secure; and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in hell: Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
Paradise Lost, Book i. Line 261 -
Far from all resort of mirth Save the cricket on the hearth.
Il Penseroso, Line 81 -
Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet, With charm of earliest birds.
Paradise Lost, Bk. iv., Line 641 -
So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found; Among the faithless, faithful only he.
Paradise Lost, Book v. Line 896 -
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost.
Paradise Lost, Book ix. Line 782 -
Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men; Unless there be who think not God at all.
Samson Agonistes, Line 293 -
To know that which before us lies in daily life Is the prime wisdom.
Paradise Lost, Bk. VIII -
Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, In every gesture dignity and love.
Paradise Lost, Book viii. Line 488 -
Deep on his front engraven Deliberation sat, and public care.
Paradise Lost -
Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom.
Il Penseroso, Line 79 -
Spirits when they please, Can either sex assume, or both.
Paradise Lost, Bk. i., Line 423 -
Still govern thou my song, Urania, and fit audience find, though few.
Paradise Lost, Bk. VII -
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.
Paradise Lost, Bk. iii., Line 40 -
Thoughts that voluntary move harmonious numbers.
Paradise Lost -
Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck’d.
Paradise Regained, Book ii. Line 228 -
Knowledge is as food, and needs no less Her temp’rance over appetite, to know In measure what the mind may well contain; Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns Wisdom to folly.
Paradise Lost, Bk. vii., Line 126 -
For evil news rides post, while good news baits.
Samson Agonistes, Line 1538 -
For who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity; To perish rather, swallowed up and lost, In the wide womb of uncreated night?
Paradise Lost -
Incens’d with indignation Satan stood Unterrify’d, and like a comet burn’d That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In th’ arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war.
Paradise Lost, Book ii. Line 707 -
And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps At wisdom’s gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems.
Paradise Lost, Book iii. Line 686 -
With centric and eccentric scribbled o’er, Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.
Paradise Lost, Book viii. Line 83 -
At whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heads.
Paradise Lost, Bk. IV -
Anon out of the earth a fabric huge Rose, like an exhalation.
Paradise Lost, Book i. Line 710 -
Take heed lest passion sway Thy judgment to do aught, which else free will Would not admit.
Paradise Lost, Bk. VIII
Where these quotes come from
- Paradise Lost (254 quotes)
- Comus (44 quotes)
- Paradise Regained (25 quotes)
- L’Allegro (20 quotes)
- Samson Agonistes (17 quotes)
- Il Penseroso (17 quotes)
- Lycidas (14 quotes)
- Poetical Works (12 quotes)
Every quote comes from a public-domain edition. How the library was made .