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John Milton: 380 quotes18 likes

“Yet I argue not
Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate one jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer
Right onward.”

To Cyriack Skinner, upon His Blindness (c. 1655)

“Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth.”

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 79

“Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 1

“Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter, holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it, as you go.
On the light fantastic toe.”

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 31

“The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 123

“Ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize.”

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 121

“Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove afield; and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 26

“He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem.”

Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)

“Hence, loathèd Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,
'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy.”

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 1

“New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ Large.”

On the new forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament (1645)

“A poet soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him.”

The Reason of Church Government (1641), Book II, Introduction

“Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.
These delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee, I mean to live.”

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 148

“Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorrèd shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 64; comparable to: "Erant quibus appetentior famæ videretur, quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriae novissima exuitur" (Translated: "Some might consider him as too fond of fame, for the desire of glory clings even to the best of men longer than any other passion"), Tacitus, Historiae, iv. 6; said of Helvidius Priscus.

“And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.”

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 49

“In mirth that after no repenting draws.”

To Cyriack Skinner, upon His Blindness (c. 1655)

“And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the checkered shade.
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday.”

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 94

“Cyriack, whose Grandsire on the Royal Bench
Of British Themis, with no mean applause
Pronounced and in his volumes taught our Laws,
Which others at their Bar so often wrench”

To Cyriack Skinner (1655)

“Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war.”

To the Lord General Cromwell (1652)
Quoted by President Benjamin Harrison in his dedication of the Chicago Auditorium, and thereafter inscribed on the building, as reported in Dr. William Carter, "Progress in World's Peace Movement", California Outlook (1913), Vol. 14, p. 11

“The gay motes that people the sunbeams.”

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 8

“That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.”

On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)