Top 500 John Milton Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded.”

— John Milton

202. “Hope elevates, and joy Brightens his crest.”

— John Milton

203. “Fame is the last infirmity of the human mind.”

— John Milton

204. “To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.”

— John Milton

205. “Who can in reason then or right assume monarchy over such as live by right his equals, if in power or splendor less, in freedom equal?”

— John Milton

206. “From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm Of hornets arm’d, no sooner found alone, But rush upon me thronging.”

— John Milton

207. “Still paying, still to owe. Eternal woe!”

— John Milton

208. “Dark with excessive bright.”

— John Milton

209. “Virtue that wavers is not virtue, but vice revolted from itself, and after a while returning. The actions of just and pious men do not darken in their middle course.”

— John Milton

210. “Beauty is God’s handwriting-a wayside sacrament.”

— John Milton

211. “Th’invention all admir’d, and each, how he to be th’inventor miss’d; so easy it seem’d once found, which yet unfound most would have thought impossible.”

— John Milton

212. “Death ready stands to interpose his dart.”

— John Milton

213. “Beauty is nature’s brag, and must be shown in courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, where most may wonder at the workmanship.”

— John Milton

214. “Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.”

— John Milton

215. “Can any mortal mixture of earth’s mould Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?”

— John Milton

216. “Back to thy punishment, False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings.”

— John Milton

217. “Death Grinn’d horrible a ghastly smile, to hear His famine should be fill’d.”

— John Milton

218. “Rose out of Chaos:.”

— John Milton

219. “Know thy birth! For dost thou art, and shalt to dust return.”

— John Milton

220. “The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to strengthen his character thereby.”

— John Milton

221. “Must I thus leave thee, Paradise?-thus leave Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades?”

— John Milton

222. “Reason is also choice.”

— John Milton

223. “And to the faithful: death, the gate of life.”

— John Milton

224. “Danger will wink on opportunity.”

— John Milton

225. “All seemed well pleased, all seemed, but were not all.”

— John Milton

226. “For solitude sometimes is best society and short retirement urges sweet return.”

— John Milton

227. “What can ’scape the eye Of God, all-seeing, or deceive His heart. Omniscient!”

— John Milton

228. “These are thy glorious works, Parent of good!”

— John Milton

229. “Boast not of what thou would’st have done, but do.”

— John Milton

230. “The liberty of conscience, which above all other things ought to be to all men dearest and most precious.”

— John Milton

231. “And now the herald lark Left his ground-nest, high tow’ring to descry The morn’s approach, and greet her with his song.”

— John Milton

232. “Nor jealousy Was understood, the injur’d lover’s hell.”

— John Milton

233. “So many laws argues so many sins.”

— John Milton

234. “Goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems.”

— John Milton

235. “Hell has no benefits, only torture.”

— John Milton

236. “And the earth self-balanced on her centre hung.”

— John Milton

237. “In those vernal seasons of the year when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.”

— John Milton

238. “Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck’d.”

— John Milton

239. “For books are as meats and viands are; some of good, some of evil sub-stance.”

— John Milton

240. “Who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?”

— John Milton

241. “Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise. That last infirmity of noble mind. To scorn delights, and live laborious days.”

— John Milton

242. “But hail thou Goddess sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy, Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight, And therefore to our weaker view O’erlaid with black, staid Wisdom’s hue.”

— John Milton

243. “Now conscience wakes despair That slumber’d,-wakes the bitter memory Of what he was, what is, and what must be Worse.”

— John Milton

244. “The debt immense of endless gratitude, So burthensome, still paying, still to owe; Forgetful what from him I still receivd, And understood not that a grateful mind By owing owes not, but still pays, at once Indebted and dischargd; what burden then?”

— John Milton

245. “God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more Is woman’s happiest knowledge and her praise. With thee conversing I forget all time.”

— John Milton

246. “Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson’s learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child, Warble his native wood-notes wild.”

— John Milton

247. “And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps At wisdom’s gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems.”

— John Milton

248. “So glistered the dire Snake, and into fraud Led Eve, our credulous mother, to the Tree Of Prohibition, root of all our woe.”

— John Milton

249. “And, when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.”

— John Milton

250. “Now came still evening on; and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad: Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, They to they grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale.”

— John Milton