Milton > Quotes

“Evil,thou be my good”
― Milton, Milton's Paradise Lost a Poem in Twelve Books Together With a Life of the Author

“Samson Agonistes"

Blind among enemies, O worse then chains,
Dungeon, or beggery, or decrepit age!
Light the prime work of God to me is extinct, [ 70 ]
And all her various objects of delight
Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd,
Inferiour to the vilest now become
Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me,
They creep, yet see, I dark in light expos'd [ 75 ]
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool,
In power of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more then half.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, [ 80 ]
Irrecoverably dark, total Eclipse
Without all hope of day!
O first created Beam, and thou great Word,
Let there be light, and light was over all;
Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree? [ 85 ]
The Sun to me is dark
And silent as the Moon,
When she deserts the night
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Since light so necessary is to life, [ 90 ]
And almost life itself, if it be true
That light is in the Soul,
She all in every part; why was the sight
To such a tender ball as th' eye confin'd?
So obvious and so easie to be quench't, [ 95 ]
And not as feeling through all parts diffus'd,
That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exil'd from light;
As in the land of darkness yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death, [ 100 ]
And buried; but O yet more miserable!”
― Milton

“So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my good.”
― Milton

“I never disrobe before gun-play”
― Milton

“Therfore when any favour'd of high Jove,
Chances to pass through this adventrous glade,
Swift as the Sparkle of a glancing Star, [ 80 ]
I shoot from Heav'n to give him safe convoy,
As now I do: But first I must put off
These my skie robes spun out of Iris Wooff,
And take the Weeds and likenes of a Swain,
That to the service of this house belongs, [ 85 ]
Who with his soft Pipe, and smooth-dittied Song,
Well knows to still the wilde winds when they roar,
And hush the waving Woods, nor of lesse faith,
And in this office of his Mountain watch,
Likeliest, and neerest to the present ayd [ 90 ]
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hatefull steps, I must be viewless now.”
― Milton

“Ode on Christ's Nativity"

XX

The lonely mountains o're,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
From haunted spring and dale
Edg'd with poplar pale, [ 185 ]
The parting Genius is with sighing sent,
With flowre-inwov'n tresses torn
The Nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.”
― Milton

“Talents parable vineyard parable
Public private
action retirement
labor leisure
ministry poetry
writing reading
publication silence, or "infancy"
(marriage virginity)”
― Milton

“Sonnet 9

Lady that in the prime of earliest youth,
Wisely hast shun'd the broad way and the green,
And with those few art eminently seen,
That labour up the Hill of heav'nly Truth,

The better part with Mary, and with Ruth, [ 5 ]
Chosen thou hast, and they that overween,
And at thy growing vertues fret their spleen,
No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth.

Thy care is fixt and zealously attends
To fill thy odorous Lamp with deeds of light, [ 10 ]
And Hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure

Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastfull friends
Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night,
Hast gain'd thy entrance, Virgin wise and pure.”
― Milton