Top 500 John Milton Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “For so I created them free and free they must remain.”

— John Milton

302. “Courage never to submit of yield.”

— John Milton

303. “Therefore God’s universal law Gave to the man despotic power Over his female in due awe, Not from that right to part an hour, Smile she or lour.”

— John Milton

304. “How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smiled!”

— John Milton

305. “Meanwhile the Adversary of God and man, Satan with thoughts inflamed of highest design, Puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of hell Explores his solitary flight.”

— John Milton

306. “Govern well thy appetite, lest Sin surprise thee, and her black attendant Death.”

— John Milton

307. “I was all ear, And took in strains that might create a soul Under the ribs of death.”

— John Milton

308. “Where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand; For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce, Strive here for mast’ry.”

— John Milton

309. “Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise, or blame,-nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble.”

— John Milton

310. “A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men’s names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.”

— John Milton

311. “But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloisters pale, And love the high embowed roof, With antique pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight; Casting a dim religious light.”

— John Milton

312. “Oh, shame to men! devil with devil damn’d Firm concord holds, men only disagree Of creatures rational.”

— John Milton

313. “And what is faith, love, virtue unassayed Alone, without exterior help sustained?”

— John Milton

314. “Nor aught availed him now to have built in heaven high towers; nor did he scrape by all his engines, but was headlong sent with his industrious crew to build in hell.”

— John Milton

315. “He who tempts, though in vain, at last asperses The tempted with dishonor foul, supposed Not incorruptible of faith, not proof Against temptation.”

— John Milton

316. “Ah gentle pair, ye little think how nigh Your change approaches, when all these delights Will vanish and deliver ye to woe, More woe, the more your taste is now of joy.”

— John Milton

317. “Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.”

— John Milton

318. “Tower’d cities please us then, And the busy hum of men.”

— John Milton

319. “So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found; Among the faithless, faithful only he.”

— John Milton

320. “Come to the sunset tree! The day is past and gone; The woodman’s axe lies free, And the reaper’s work is done.”

— John Milton

321. “Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks and rivers wide Towers and battlements it sees Bosom’d high in tufted trees, Where perhaps some beauty lies, The cynosure of neighboring eyes.”

— John Milton

322. “Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar Stood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined; Till at his second bidding darkness fled, Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.”

— John Milton

323. “Spirits when they please Can either sex assume, or both.”

— John Milton

324. “How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo’s lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets Where no crude surfeit reigns.”

— John Milton

325. “Let no man seek Henceforth to be foretold that shall befall Him or his children.”

— John Milton

326. “Thou art my father, thou my author, thou my being gav’st me; whom should I obey but thee, whom follow?”

— John Milton

327. “But all was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropp’d manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, 4 to perplex and dash Maturest counsels.”

— John Milton

328. “Day and night, Seed-time and harvest, heat and hoary frost Shall hold their course, till fire purge all things new.”

— John Milton

329. “So shall the world go on, To good malignant, to bad men benign, Under her own weight groaning.”

— John Milton

330. “Moping melancholy And moon-struck madness.”

— John Milton

331. “Fear of change perplexes monarchs.”

— John Milton

332. “And out of good still to find means of evil.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

334. “O visions ill foreseen! Better had I Liv’d ignorant of future, so had borne My part of evil only.”

— John Milton

335. “Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe.”

— John Milton

336. “If weakness may excuse, What murderer, what traitor, parricide, Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it? All wickedness is weakness; that plea, therefore, With God or man will gain thee no remission.”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

338. “But O yet more miserable! Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave.”

— John Milton

339. “O’er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp, Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death.”

— John Milton

340. “And fast by, hanging in a golden chain, This pendent world, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.”

— John Milton

341. “That space the Evil One abstracted stood From his own evil, and for the time remained Stupidly good, of enmity disarmed, Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge .”

— John Milton

342. “Where all life dies death lives.”

— John Milton

343. “The first and wisest of them all professed To know this only, that he nothing knew.”

— John Milton

344. “Heaven open’d wide Her ever during gates, harmonious sound, On golden hinges moving.”

— John Milton

345. “As children gath’ring pebbles on the shore. Or if I would delight my private hours With music or with poem, where so soon As in our native language can I find That solace?”

— John Milton

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

— John Milton

347. “To adore the conqueror, who now beholds Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood.”

— John Milton

348. “Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot Which men call earth.”

— John Milton

349. “And these gems of Heav’n, her starry train.”

— John Milton

350. “And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.”

— John Milton