Top 500 John Milton Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchang’d To hoarse or mute, though fall’n on evil days, On evil days though fall’n, and evil tongues.”

— John Milton

202. “For truth is strong next to the Almighty. She needs no policies or stratagems or licensings to make her victorious. These are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power.”

— John Milton

203. “Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth With such a full and unwithdrawing hand, Covering the earth with odours, fruits, flocks, Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable, But all to please and sate the curious taste?”

— John Milton

204. “Virtue hath no tongue to check vice’s pride.”

— John Milton

205. “Have hung My dank and dropping weeds To the stern god of sea.”

— John Milton

206. “Come knit hands, and beat the ground in a light fantastic round.”

— John Milton

207. “Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image, but thee who destroys a good book, kills reason its self.”

— John Milton

208. “Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial To my proportion’d strength.”

— John Milton

209. “Lifted up so high I disdained subjection, and thought one step higher would set me highest.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

211. “In Physic, things of melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humors.”

— John Milton

212. “When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for.”

— John Milton

213. “The winds with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kisst.”

— John Milton

214. “It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit, Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit, That woman’s love can win, or long inherit; But what it is, hard is to say, Harder to hit.”

— John Milton

215. “Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.”

— John Milton

216. “Infinity is a dark illimitable ocean, without bound.”

— John Milton

217. “Yet I argue not Against Heav’n’s hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward.”

— John Milton

218. “For to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.”

— John Milton

219. “The best apology against false accusers is silence.”

— John Milton

220. “For men to tell how human life began Is hard; for who himself beginning knew?”

— John Milton

221. “With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded.”

— John Milton

222. “Forget thyself to marble.”

— John Milton

223. “A death-like sleep, A gentle wafting to immortal life.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

225. “Sable-vested Night, eldest of things.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

227. “Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

229. “Sweet bird, that shun the noise of folly, most musical, most melancholy!”

— John Milton

230. “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

231. “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

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

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

235. “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

236. “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

237. “To know that which lies before us in daily life is the prime wisdom.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

239. “Rose out of Chaos:.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

241. “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

242. “Midnight brought on the dusky hour Friendliest to sleep and silence.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

244. “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

245. “I fled, and cry’d out, Death; Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh’d From all her caves, and back resounded, Death.”

— John Milton

246. “Enflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

249. “Reason is also choice.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton