Top 500 John Milton Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “Reason is also choice.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

253. “Danger will wink on opportunity.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

257. “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

261. “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

262. “Dim eclipse, disastrous twilight.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

266. “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

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

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

269. “Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse, But Heav’ns free Love dealt equally to all? Be then his Love accurst, since love or hate, To me alike, it deals eternal woe. Nay.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

271. “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

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

— John Milton

273. “For liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands.”

— John Milton

274. “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

275. “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

276. “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

277. “For evil news rides post, while good news baits.”

— John Milton

278. “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

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

— John Milton

280. “In God’s intention, a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and noblest end of marriage.”

— John Milton

281. “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

282. “Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason’s garb, counseled ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth, not peace.”

— John Milton

283. “Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, Surprised by unjust force, but not inthralled; Yea, even that which mischief meant most harm Shall in the happy trial prove most glory.”

— John Milton

284. “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

285. “The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it, But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flow’r, but not in this soil; Unknown, and like esteem’d, and the dull swain Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon.”

— John Milton

Featured in: Country Quotes

286. “The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks, Safest and seemliest by her husband stays, Who guards her, or with her the worst endures.”

— John Milton

287. “Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given, That brought into this world a world of woe, Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery, Death’s harbinger.”

— John Milton

288. “It was from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world.”

— John Milton

289. “Wickedness is weakness.”

— John Milton

290. “A complete and generous education fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.”

— John Milton

291. “Be strong, live happy and love, but first of all Him whom to love is to obey, and keep His great command!”

— John Milton

Featured in: Strong Quotes

292. “Hear all ye angels, progeny of light, Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.”

— John Milton

293. “These two imparadised in one another’s arms, the happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill of bliss on bliss.”

— John Milton

294. “Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape Crush’d the sweet poison of misused wine.”

— John Milton

295. “Myself, and all the Angelic Host, that stand in the sight of God enthroned, our happy state hold, as you yours, while our obedience hold. On other surety none: freely we serve, because we freely love.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

297. “And the more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel Torment within me.”

— John Milton

298. “Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav’n.”

— John Milton

299. “O welcome pure-eyed Faith, white handed Hope, Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings.”

— John Milton

300. “Some say no evil thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine, Hath hurtful power o’er true virginity.”

— John Milton