Top 500 John Milton Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “Evil on itself shall back recoil.”

— John Milton

102. “Money brings honor, friends, conquest, and realms.”

— John Milton

103. “Sweetest Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv’st unseen Within thy airy shell, By slow Meander’s margent green, And in the violet-embroidered vale.”

— John Milton

104. “The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveller.”

— John Milton

105. “Time, though in Eternity, applied To motion, measures all things durable By present, past, and future.”

— John Milton

106. “There is no truth sure enough to justify persecution.”

— John Milton

107. “Virtue that wavers is not virtue.”

— John Milton

108. “Swinish gluttony never looks to heaven amidst its gorgeous feast; but with besotted, base ingratitude, cravens and blasphemes his feeder.”

— John Milton

109. “Chaos umpire sits And by decision more embroils the fray by which he reigns: next him high arbiter Chance governs all.”

— John Milton

110. “From morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,- A summer’s day; and with the setting sun Dropp’d from the Zenith like a falling star.”

— John Milton

111. “Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost.”

— John Milton

112. “Then wilt thou not be loath To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess A Paradise within thee, happier far.”

— John Milton

113. “Knowledge forbidden? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord Envy them that? Can it be a sin to know? Can it be death?”

— John Milton

114. “What reinforcement we may gain from hope; If not, what resolution from despair.”

— John Milton

115. “Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.”

— John Milton

116. “Be lowly wise: Think only what concerns thee and thy being.”

— John Milton

117. “Accuse not nature: she hath done her part; Do thou but thine.”

— John Milton

118. “Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheek.”

— John Milton

119. “His rod revers’d, And backward mutters of dissevering power.”

— John Milton

120. “Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.”

— John Milton

121. “United thoughts and counsels, equal hope And hazard in the glorious enterprise.”

— John Milton

122. “Those whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme.”

— John Milton

123. “Hail holy light, offspring of heav’n firstborn!”

— John Milton

124. “Such sober certainty of waking bliss.”

— John Milton

125. “Where the bright seraphim in burning row Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow.”

— John Milton

126. “Midnight shout and revelry, Tipsy dance and jollity.”

— John Milton

127. “Where more is meant than meets the ear.”

— John Milton

128. “To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull Night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise.”

— John Milton

129. “This horror will grow mild, this darkness light.”

— John Milton

130. “Education of youth is not a bow for every man to shoot in that counts himself a teacher; but will require sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave to Ulysses.”

— John Milton

131. “Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.”

— John Milton

132. “In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread, Till thou return unto the ground; for thou Out of the ground wast taken; know thy birth, For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return.”

— John Milton

133. “For what can war, but endless war, still breed?”

— John Milton

134. “The love-lorn nightingale nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well.”

— John Milton

135. “The brazen throat of war.”

— John Milton

136. “A man may be ungrateful, but the human race is not so.”

— John Milton

137. “Antichrist is Mammon’s son.”

— John Milton

138. “Perplexed and troubled at his bad success The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply, Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope.”

— John Milton

139. “The sun to me is dark And silent as the moon, When she deserts the night Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.”

— John Milton

140. “I thence invoke my thy aid to my adventurous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar above the Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.”

— John Milton

141. “Love Virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heav’n itself would stoop to her.”

— John Milton

142. “Unless an age too late, or cold Climate, or years, damp my intended wing.”

— John Milton

143. “Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of ev’n or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.”

— John Milton

144. “A crown Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns, Bring dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights To him who wears the regal diadem.”

— John Milton

145. “I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs By the known rules of ancient liberty, When straight a barbarous noise environs me Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs.”

— John Milton

146. “Truth is compared in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.”

— John Milton

147. “Smiles from reason flow, To brute deny’d, and are of love the food.”

— John Milton

148. “Ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void.”

— John Milton

149. “Promiscuous reading is necessary to the constituting of human nature. The attempt to keep out evil doctrine by licensing is like the exploit of that gallant man who thought to keep out the crows by shutting the park gate.”

— John Milton

150. “O fleeting joys Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes!”

— John Milton