Milton Paradise Lost Quotes & Sayings

On a wing and a prayer. (After being asked how the angels make love in Milton's Paradise Lost). — Benjamin R. Smith

Thus it shall befall Him, who to worth in women over-trusting, Lets her will rule: restraint she will not brook; And left to herself, if evil thence ensue She first his weak indulgence will accuse. — John Milton

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded. — John Milton

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

. . man he made and for him built Magnificent this world, and earth his seat, Him lord pronounced; and, Oh indignity! Subjected to his service angel-wings, And flaming ministers to watch and tend Their earthly charge: Of these the vigilance I dread; and, to elude, thus wrapped in mist Of midnight vapor glide obscure, and pry In every bush and brake, where hap may find The serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds To hide me, and the dark intent I bring. - PARADISE LOST, JOHN MILTON — Sandra Byrd

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. - JOHN MILTON, PARADISE LOST — Blake Crouch

Judge not what is best by pleasure, though to nature seeming meet, created as thou art to nobler end, holy and pure, conformity divine. It's Milton, Paradise Lost, something Ashey said to me when I told him I wasn't into porn. He's always quoting stuff like that; he thinks it will inspire me. It does. — Jason Heller

God is thy law, thou mine. — John Milton

Pleas'd me, long choosing and beginning late. — John Milton

All that can best be expressed in words should be expressed in verse, but verse is a slow thing to create; nay, it is not really created: it is a secretion of the mind, it is a pearl that gathers round some irritant and slowly expresses the very essence of beauty and of desire that has lain long, potential and unexpressed, in the mind of the man who secretes it. God knows that this Unknown Country has been hit off in verse a hundred times...

Milton does it so well in the Fourth Book of Paradise Lost that I defy any man of a sane understanding to read the whole of that book before going to bed and not to wake up next morning as though he had been on a journey. — Hilaire Belloc

Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair: we must exasperate
The Almighty Victor to spend all his rage;
And that must end us; that must be our cure,
To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,
Let this be good, whether our angry Foe
Can give it, or will ever? How he can
Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.
John Milton, Belial
(Book II Paradise Lost) — John Milton

Pearl introduces an original story, in a form which was to become one of the most frequent in mediaeval literature, the dream-vision. Authors like Chaucer and Langland use this form, in which the narrator describes another world - usually a heavenly paradise - which is compared with the earthly human world. In Pearl, the narrator sees his daughter who died in infancy, 'the ground of all my bliss'. She now has a kind of perfect knowledge, which her father can never comprehend. The whole poem underlines the divide between human comprehension and perfection; these lines show the gap between possible perfection and fallen humanity which, thematically, anticipate many literary examinations of man's fall, the most well known being Milton's late Renaissance epic, Paradise Lost. — Ronald Carter

Still paying, still to owe.
Eternal woe! — John Milton

Who aspires must down as low
As high he soar'd. — John Milton

They changed their minds, Flew off, and into strange vagaries fell. — John Milton

O fairest of creation, last and best Of all God's works, creature in whom excelled Whatever can to sight or thought be formed, Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet! How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost, Defaced, deflow'red, and now to death devote? Paradise Lost — John Milton

This horror will grow mild, this darkness light. — John Milton

Thou at the sight
Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile,
While by thee raised I ruin all my foes,
Death last, and with his carcass glut the grave. — John Milton

The mind is a universe and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. — John Milton

A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,
And pavement stars - as starts to thee appear
Soon in the galaxy, that milky way
Which mightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powder'd wiht stars. — John Milton

Hope elevates, and joy
Brightens his crest. — John Milton

So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate,
Giving to death, and dying to redeem,
So dearly to redeem what hellish hate
So easily destroy'd, and still destroys,
In those who, when they may, accept not grace. — John Milton

Not to know me argues yourselves unknown. — John Milton

Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav'n. — John Milton

Mammon led them on, Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell From heav'n, for ev'n in heav'n his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of Heav'ns pavement, trod'n Gold, Then aught divine or holy else enjoy'd In vision beatific; by him first Men also, and by his suggestion taught, Ransack'd the Center, and with impious hands Rifl'd the bowels of thir mother Earth For Treasures better hid. - MILTON, Paradise Lost — Neal Stephenson

What hath night to do with sleep? — John Milton

There is only one sin and it is: weakness. When I was a boy, I read Milton's Paradise Lost. The only good man I had any respect for was Satan. The only saint is that person who never weakens, faces everything, and determines die game. — Swami Vivekananda

Or if they list to try
Conjecture, he his fabric of the Heavens
Hath left to their disputes, perhaps to move
His laughter at their quaint opinions wide.
John Milton, Paradise Lost viii 75-78 — John Milton

Where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes,
That comes to all. — John Milton

The Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa....Leonardo had eye trouble....Art couldn't explain it....But now we're safe, since science can explain it. Maybe Milton wrote Paradise Lost because he was blind? And Beethoven wrote the Ninth Symphony because he was deaf... — William Gaddis

What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support,
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men. 1
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 22. — John Milton

Most of my reading is based on what I'm working on. I did a series of paintings based on the seven deadly sins, so I read Dante and then Milton's 'Paradise Lost.' That was a bit hard going. — Jamie Wyeth

The never-ending flight Of future days. — John Milton

'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. — John Milton

Ah, that's your problem," Riley said, relieved to be on familiar ground. "You've got a copy of Paradise Lost
in your house. Biblios hate Milton. Same with Dante, C.S. Lewis and most holy books. They'll go after those every time. — Jana Oliver

Blake said Milton was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it. I am of the Devil's party and know it. — Philip Pullman

But first whom shall we send
In search of this new world, whom shall we find
Sufficient? Who shall tempt, with wand'ring feet
The dark unbottomed infinite abyss
And through the palpable obscure find out
His uncouth way, or spread his aery flight
Upborne with indefatigable wings
Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive
The happy isle? — John Milton

So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed
In serpent, inmate bad! and toward Eve
Addressed his way: not with indented wave,
Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear,
Circular base of rising folds, that towered
Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head
Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;
With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect
Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass
Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape
And lovely; never since of serpent-kind
Lovelier ... — John Milton

No, never mind, I didn't think so. Mead, Dante's theme is man-not a man.' Lowell said finally with a mild patience that he reserved only for students. "The Italians forever twitch at Dante's sleeves trying to make him say he is of their politics and their way of thinking. Their way indeed! To confine it to Florence or Italy is to banish it from the sympathies of mankind. We read Paradise Lost as a poem but Dante's Comedy as a chronicle of our inner lives. Do you boys know of Isaiah 38:10 — Matthew Pearl

What hither brought us, hate, not love, nor hope Of Paradise for Hell, hope here to taste Of pleasure, but all pleasure to destroy, Save what is in destroying, other joy To me is lost. Then — John Milton

Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong naming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition ; there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms. — John Milton

ALL WHO HAVE THEIR REWARD ON EARTH, THE FRUITS OF PAINFUL SUPERSTITION AND BLIND ZEAL, NOUGHT SEEKING BUT THE PRAISE OF MEN, HERE FIND FIT RETRIBUTION, EMPTY AS THEIR DEED — John Milton

They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide;
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way. — John Milton

When I read 'Paradise Lost,' or 'Richard III,' it is clear that Milton and Shakespeare took real pleasure and satisfaction from creating these epitomes of evil. — Marilynne Robinson

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep. - John Milton, Paradise Lost — Lisa Unger

But say That death be not one stroke, as I supposed, Bereaving sense, but endless misery From this day onward, which I feel begun Both in me, and without me, and so last To perpetuity; ay me, that fear Comes thund'ring back with dreadful revolution On my defenceless head; both Death and I Am found eternal, and incorporate both, Nor I on my part single, in me all Paradise Lost Posterity stands cursed: fair patrimony That I must leave ye, sons; O were I able To waste it all myself, and leave ye none! — John Milton

So he with difficulty and labour hard Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour he. — John Milton

Their rising all at once was as the sound
Of thunder heard remote. — John Milton

And the more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel Torment within me. — John Milton

Formerly Milton's Paradise Lost had been my chief favourite, and in my excursions during the voyage of the Beagle, when I could take only a single small volume, I always chose Milton. — Charles Darwin