John Milton was an English poet and intellectual who served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious and political instability and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667). Written in blank verse, Paradise Lost is widely considered to be one of the greatest works of literature ever written. These John Milton quotes will motivate you.
Best John Milton Quotes
- “The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.” ~ John Milton
- “He who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king.” ~ John Milton
- “The end of all learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love and imitate Him.” ~ John Milton
- “Infinity is a dark illimitable ocean, without bound.” ~ John Milton
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“Evil on itself shall back recoil.” ~ John Milton
- “There is nothing that making men rich and strong but that which they carry inside of them. True wealth is of the heart, not of the hand.” ~ John Milton
- “Solitude sometimes is best society.” ~ John Milton
- “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” ~ John Milton
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“Where no hope is left, is left no fear.” ~ John Milton
- “When we speak of knowing God, it must be understood with reference to man’s limited powers of comprehension. God, as He really is, is far beyond man’s imagination, let alone understanding. God has revealed only so much of Himself as our minds can conceive and the weakness of our nature can bear.” ~ John Milton
- “Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny; for no power that is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them.” ~ John Milton
- “Innocence, Once Lost, Can Never Be Regained. Darkness, Once Gazed Upon, Can Never Be Lost.” ~ John Milton
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“He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.” ~ John Milton
- “Let us no more contend, nor blame each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive, In offices of love, how we may lighten each other’s burden.” ~ John Milton
- “Midnight brought on the dusky hour Friendliest to sleep and silence.” ~ John Milton
- “Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou livest,
Live well; how long, or short, permit to Heaven.” ~ John Milton - “For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.” ~ John Milton
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“Nothing profits more than self-esteem, grounded on what is just and right.” ~ John Milton
- “Apt words have power to suage the tumors of a troubled mind.” ~ John Milton
- “The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day.” ~ John Milton
- “Thou can not touch the freedom of my mind.” ~ John Milton, John Milton quotes on freedom of mind
- “Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.” ~ John Milton
- “Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n.” ~ John Milton
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“Not to know me argues yourselves unknown.” ~ John Milton
- “Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, in every gesture dignity and love.” ~ John Milton
- “Freely we serve, because freely we love.” ~ John Milton
- “Who can enjoy alone? Or all enjoying what contentment find?” ~ John Milton
- “Prudence is the virtue by which we discern what is proper to do under various circumstances in time and place.” ~ John Milton
- “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” ~ John Milton
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“Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.” ~ John Milton
- “Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam.” ~ John Milton
- “A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit.” ~ John Milton
- “Loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named not good.” ~ John Milton
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“Every cloud has a silver lining.” ~ John Milton
- “There is no learned man but will confess be hath much profited by reading controversies,–his senses awakened, his judgment sharpened, and the truth which he holds firmly established. If then it be profitable for him to read, why should it not at least be tolerable and free for his adversary to write? In logic they teach that contraries laid together, more evidently appear; it follows then, that all controversy being permitted, falsehood will appear more false, and truth the more true; which must needs conduce much to the general confirmation of an implicit truth.” ~ John Milton
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“Luck is the residue of design.” ~ John Milton
- “Hope elevates, and joy Brightens his crest.” ~ John Milton, John Milton quotes on hope
- “For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a farther slavery: 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: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need.” ~ John Milton
- “Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.” ~ John Milton
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“Danger will wink on opportunity.” ~ John Milton
- “And feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce.” ~ John Milton - “To be weak is miserable, Doing or suffering.” ~ John Milton
- “Who, as they sung, would take the prison’d soul And lap it in Elysium.” ~ John Milton
- “Tears such as angels weep.” ~ John Milton
- “To be blind is not miserable; not to be able to bear blindness, that is miserable.” ~ John Milton
- “My heart contains of good, wise, just, the perfect shape.” ~ John Milton
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“Believe and be confirmed.” ~ John Milton
- “The Saviour who flitted before the patriarchs through the fog of the old dispensation, and who spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets, articulate but unseen, is the same Saviour who, on the open heights of the Gospel, and in the abundant daylight of this New Testament, speaks to us. Still all along it is the same Jesus, and that Bible is from beginning to end all of it, the word of Christ.” ~ John Milton
- “Gratitude bestows reverence…..changing forever how we experience life and the world.” ~ John Milton
- “Of four infernal rivers that disgorge/ Into the burning Lake their baleful streams;/Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate,/Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;/Cocytus, nam’d of lamentation loud/ Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon/ Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage./ Far off from these a slow and silent stream,/ Lethe the River of Oblivion rolls/ Her wat’ry Labyrinth whereof who drinks,/ Forthwith his former state and being forgets,/ Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.” ~ John Milton
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“To live a life half dead, a living death.” ~ John Milton
- “Most men admire Virtue who follow not her lore.” ~ John Milton
- “The martyrs shook the powers of darkness with the irresistible power of weakness.” ~ John Milton
- “Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity.” ~ John Milton
- “Now the bright morning-star, Day’s harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire!
Woods and groves are of thy dressing;
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.” ~ John Milton - “how wearisom Eternity so spent in worship paid To whom we hate. Let us not then pursue By force impossible, by leave obtain’d Unacceptable, though in Heav’n, our state Of splendid vassalage, but rather seek Our own good from our selves, and from our own Live to our selves, though in this vast recess, Free, and to none accountable, preferring Hard liberty before the easie yoke Of servile Pomp” ~ John Milton
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“The whole freedom of man consists either in spiritual or civil liberty.” ~ John Milton
- “Love Virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heav’n itself would stoop to her.” ~ John Milton
- “No mighty trance, or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.” ~ John Milton
- “Beauty is God’s handwriting-a wayside sacrament.” ~ John Milton
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“Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence.” ~ John Milton
- “The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveler.” ~ John Milton
- “Knowledge forbidden? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord Envy them that? Can it be sin to know, Can it be death? And do they only stand By ignorance? Is that their happy state, The proof of their obedience and their faith? O fair foundation laid whereon to build Their ruin!” ~ John Milton
- “I sat me down to watch upon a bank With ivy canopied and interwove With flaunting honeysuckle.” ~ John Milton
- “The virtuous mind that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.” ~ John Milton
