John Milton Quotes

“But first whom shall we send
In search of this new world, whom shall we find
Sufficient? Who shall tempt, with wand'ring feet
The dark unbottomed infinite abyss
And through the palpable obscure find out
His uncouth way, or spread his aery flight
Upborne with indefatigable wings
Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive
The happy isle?”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Thus Milton refines the question down to a matter of faith," said Coleridge, bringing the lecture to a close, "and a kind of faith more independent, autonomous - more truly strong, as a matter of fact - than the Puritans really sought. Faith, he tells us, is not an exotic bloom to be laboriously maintained by the exclusion of most aspects of the day to day world, nor a useful delusion to be supported by sophistries and half-truths like a child's belief in Father Christmas - not, in short, a prudently unregarded adherence to a constructed creed; but rather must be, if anything, a clear-eyed recognition of the patterns and tendencies, to be found in every piece of the world's fabric, which are the lineaments of God. This is why religion can only be advice and clarification, and cannot carry any spurs of enforcement - for only belief and behavior that is independently arrived at, and then chosen, can be praised or blamed. This being the case, it can be seen as a criminal abridgement of a person's rights willfully to keep him in ignorance of any facts - no piece can be judged inadmissible, for the more stones, both bright and dark, that are added to the mosaic, the clearer is our picture of God.”
― Tim Powers, The Anubis Gates

“A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,
And pavement stars—as starts to thee appear
Soon in the galaxy, that milky way
Which mightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powder'd wiht stars.”
― John Milton Paradise Lost

“Thus it shall befall Him, who to worth in women over-trusting, Lets her will rule: restraint she will not brook; And left to herself, if evil thence ensue She first his weak indulgence will accuse.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Blake said Milton was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it. I am of the Devil's party and know it.”
― Philip Pullman

“He would have been half-hanged, taken down alive, castrated, his genitals stuffed in his mouth, his stomach slit open, and his intestines taken out and burnt, and his carcase chopped into four quarters.”
― John Broadbent, John Milton: Introductions

“Thou at the sight
Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile,
While by thee raised I ruin all my foes,
Death last, and with his carcass glut the grave.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Milton's learned vocabulary [...] and his distant perspectives, represent the authoritative unintelligibility of the parents' speech as heard by the child.”
― John Broadbent, John Milton: Introductions

“...[T]he three greatest works are those of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare.

These are closely followed by the works of Virgil and Milton.”
― Joseph Devlin, How To Speak And Write Correctly

“He was, as every truly great poet has ever been, a good man; but finding it impossible to realize his own aspirations, either in religion or politics, or society, he gave up his heart to the living spirit and light within him, and avenged himself on the world by enriching it with this record of his own transcendental ideal.”
― S. T. Coleridge

“ALL WHO HAVE THEIR REWARD ON EARTH, THE FRUITS OF PAINFUL SUPERSTITION AND BLIND ZEAL, NOUGHT SEEKING BUT THE PRAISE OF MEN, HERE FIND FIT RETRIBUTION, EMPTY AS THEIR DEED”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“But now at last the sacred influence
Of light appears, and rom the walls of Heav'n
Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night
A glimmering dawn; here Nature first begins
her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire
As from her outmost works a broken foe
With tumult less and with less hostile din,”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Celestial light, shine inward...that I may see and tell of things invisible to mortal sight”
― John Milton

“I love everything that flows,’ said the great blind Milton of our times. I was thinking of him this morning when I awoke with a great bloody shout of joy: I was thinking of his rivers and trees and all that world of night which he is exploring. Yes, I said to myself, I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen, blood, bile, words, sentences. I love the amniotic fluid when it spills out of the bag. I love the kidney with it’s painful gall-stones, its gravel and what-not; I love the urine that pours out scalding and the clap that runs endlessly; I love the words of hysterics and the sentences that flow on like dysentery and mirror all the sick images of the soul...”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.”
― John Milton, Areopagitica

“Milton was the gold standard of religious poets for English and American scholars. But Milton wrote of Hell and Heaven from above and below, respectively, not from the inside: safer advantages.”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club

“No, never mind, I didn't think so. Mead, Dante's theme is man-not a man.' Lowell said finally with a mild patience that he reserved only for students. "The Italians forever twitch at Dante's sleeves trying to make him say he is of their politics and their way of thinking. Their way indeed! To confine it to Florence or Italy is to banish it from the sympathies of mankind. We read Paradise Lost as a poem but Dante's Comedy as a chronicle of our inner lives. Do you boys know of Isaiah 38:10”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club

“I love everything that flows,’ said the great blind Milton of our times. I was thinking of him this morning when I awoke with a great bloody shout of joy: I was thinking of his rivers and trees and all that world of night which he is exploring. Yes, I said to myself, I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen, blood, bile, words, sentences. I love the amniotic fluid when it spills out of the bag. I love the kidney with it’s painful gall-stones, it’s gravel and what-not; I love the urine that pours out scalding and the clap that runs endlessly; I love the words of hysterics and the sentences that flow on like dysentery and mirror all the sick images of the soul...”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer