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John Milton Quotes
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John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost , written in blank verse.

Milton's poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. Writing in English, Latin, Greek, and Italian, he achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated Areopagitica , written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship, is among history's most influential and impassioned defences of free speech and freedom of the press.

William Hayley's 1796 biography called him the "greatest English author", and he remains generally regarded "as one of the preeminent writers in the English language", though critical reception has oscillated in the centuries since his death . Samuel Johnson praised Paradise Lost as "a poem which...with respect to design may claim the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among the productions of the human mind", though he described Milton's politics as those of an "acrimonious and surly republican".



✵ 9. December 1608 – 8. November 1674
John Milton photo
John Milton: 190   quotes 18   likes

John Milton Quotes

“That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.”

John Milton

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

“Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.”

John Milton

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 173

“Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging low with sullen roar.”

John Milton

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 73

Water

“Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day.”

John Milton

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

“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.”

John Milton

To Cyriack Skinner (1646–1647)

God , Time

“Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered sleep.”

John Milton

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 141

Sleep , Water , Bee , Singing

“Behold the kings of the Earth how they oppress
Thy chosen, to what highth thir pow'r unjust
They have exalted, and behind them cast
All fear of thee, arise and vindicate
Thy Glory, free thy people from thir yoke”

John Milton Paradise Regained

Book II: Lines 44-48
Paradise Regained (1671)

People , Fear

“License they mean when they cry, Liberty!
For who loves that must first be wise and good.”

John Milton

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

Love , Cry

“To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

i.262-263
Paradise Lost (1667)

Hell

“Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.”

John Milton book Tetrachordon

Tetrachordon (1644–1645)

Men , Law

“He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay.”

John Milton Lycidas

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.

John Milton

Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda (1654) p. 32 http://books.google.com/books?id=nbO6Zde06ocC&q=Non+%22caecitatem+non%22&pg=PA32#v=onepage

“Litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees.”

John Milton

Tractate of Education (1644)

“But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 37

Art , Change

“At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 192

“Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.”

John Milton

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 143

Soul

“What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attic taste?”

John Milton

To Mr. Lawrence

Light

“The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty.”

John Milton

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 36

Mountain

“His words … like so many nimble and airy servitors trip about him at command.”

John Milton

Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)

“Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!”

John Milton

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 61

Music , Bird

“For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower, among good authors is accounted Plagiarè.”

John Milton book Eikonoklastes

Eikonoklastes (1649), 23

“No war, or battle's sound
Was heard the world around.
The idle spear and shield were high up hung.”

John Milton On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Hymn, stanza 4, line 53
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629)

War , World

“He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.”

John Milton Comus

Source: Comus (1634), Lines 381-385

Soul , Light , Sun

“None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.”

John Milton

Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649)

Love , Men , Freedom

“And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.”

John Milton

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 39

Soul

“It was the winter wild
While the Heav'n-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies.”

John Milton On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Hymn, stanza 1, line 29
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629)

Winter

“That old man eloquent.”

John Milton

To the Lady Margaret Ley, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“My rising is thy fall”

John Milton Paradise Regained

Spoke by Jesus to Satan
Book III: Line 201
Paradise Regained (1671)

“The gadding vine.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 40

“And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert th' Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

i.17-26
Paradise Lost (1667)

Support , God , Heart , Men

“Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

John Milton

On His Blindness (1652)

Compare "Patience is also a form of action." Attributed to Auguste Rodin in: Leonard William Doob (1990). Hesitation: Impulsivity and Reflection. p. 124

Waiting , Speed