“Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.”
Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 173
Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 73
“Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day.”
Sonnet to the Nightingale, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "That well by reason men it call may / The daisie, or els the eye of the day, / The emprise, and floure of floures all", Geoffrey Chaucer, Prologue of the Legend of Good Women, line 183
“License they mean when they cry, Liberty!
For who loves that must first be wise and good.”
On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
i.262-263
Paradise Lost (1667)
“Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.”
Tetrachordon (1644–1645)
“He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay.”
Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 188
“It is not miserable to be blind; it is miserable to be incapable of enduring blindness.”
Non est miserum esse caecum, miserum est caecitatem non posse ferre.
Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda (1654) p. 32 http://books.google.com/books?id=nbO6Zde06ocC&q=Non+%22caecitatem+non%22&pg=PA32#v=onepage
“But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!”
Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 37
“At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.”
Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 192
“Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.”
Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 143
“His words … like so many nimble and airy servitors trip about him at command.”
Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)
“Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!”
Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 61