John Milton Men Quotations

To overcome in battle, and subdue Nations, and bring home spoils with infinite Man-slaughter, shall be held the highest pitch Of human glory.

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.

Opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.

The low'ring element Scowls o'er the darken'd landscape.

As therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowledge of good and evil?

And sing to those that hold the vital shears; And turn the adamantine spindle round, On which the fate of gods and men is wound.

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.

Say, heavenly pow'rs, where shall we find such love? Which of ye will be mortal to redeem Man's mortal crime, and just th' unjust to save.

Promiscuous reading is necessary to the constituting of human nature. The attempt to keep out evil doctrine by licensing is like the exploit of that gallant man who thought to keep out the crows by shutting the park gate.

O why did God, Creator wise, that peopled highest heav'n With Spirits masculine, create at last This novelty on earth, this fair defect Of nature, and not fill the world at once With men as angels without feminine, Or find some other way to generate Mankind?

When thou attended gloriously from heaven , Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send Thy summoning archangels to proclaim Thy dread tribunal.

Ah, why should all mankind For one man's fault, be condemned, If guiltless?

Our torments also may in length of time Become our elements, these piercing fires As soft as now severe, our temper changed Into their temper.

The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to strengthen his character thereby.

Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image, but thee who destroys a good book, kills reason its self.

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

Rhime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter...the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimeing

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?

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.

For men to tell how human life began Is hard; for who himself beginning knew?

None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.

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.

So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair that ever since in love's embraces met -- Adam, the goodliest man of men since born his sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/Brought death into the world, and all our woe,/With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,/Sing heavenly muse

How oft, in nations gone corrupt, And by their own devices brought down to servitude, That man chooses bondage before liberty. Bondage with ease before strenuous liberty.

O shame to men! Devil with devil damned Firm concord holds, men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope Of heavenly grace: and God proclaiming peace, Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife Among themselves, and levy cruel wars, Wasting the earth, each other to destroy: As if (which might induce us to accord) Man had not hellish foes enough besides, That day and night for his destruction wait.

My mansion is, where those immortal shapes Of bright aerial spirits live insphered In regions mild of calm and serene air, Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot Which men call Earth.

When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for.

Immortal amarant, a flower which once In paradise, fast by the tree of life, Began to bloom; but soon for man's offence To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows, And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life, And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven Rolls o'er elysian flowers her amber stream: With these that never fade the spirits elect Bind their resplendent locks.

Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.

A bevy of fair women.

Back to thy punishment, False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings.

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

That power Which erring men call Chance.

None But such as are good men can give good things, And that which is not good, is not delicious To a well-govern'd and wise appetite.

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

Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men; Unless there be who think not God at all.

Oh, shame to men! devil with devil damn'd Firm concord holds, men only disagree Of creatures rational.

Tower'd cities please us then, And the busy hum of men.

Socrates... Whom well inspir'd the oracle pronounc'd Wisest of men.

Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd.

God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.

Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names.

Enflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.

And yet on the other hand unless warinesse be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image, but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye.

For neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, except to God alone.

The childhood shows the man As morning shows the day. Be famous then By wisdom; as thy empire must extend, So let extend thy mind o'er all the world.

A short retirement urges a sweet return.

Seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books.

No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.

Spirits that live throughout, Vital in every part, not as frail man, In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins, Cannot but by annihilating die.

The olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.

Mutual love, the crown of all our bliss.

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.

When a king sets himself to bandy against the highest court and residence of all regal powers, he then, in the single person of a man, fights against his own majesty and kingship.

The spirit of man, which God inspired, cannot together perish with this corporeal clod.

Evil into the mind of god or man may come and go, so unapproved, and leave no spot or blame behind.

We should be wary what persecution we raise against the living labors of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books, since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at the ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself; slays an immortality rather than a life.

Retiring from the popular noise, I seek This unfrequented place to find some ease.

Angels contented with their face in heaven, Seek not the praise of men.

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.

It is not hard for any man who hath a Bible in his hand to borrow good words and holy sayings in abundance; but to make them his own is a work of grace only from above.

Wealth and honours, which most men pursue, easily change masters; they desert to the side which excels in virtue, industry, and endurance of toil, and they abandon the slothful.

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them....I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.

No institution which does not continually test its ideals, techniques and measure of accomplishment can claim real vitality.

God has set labor and rest, as day and night to men successive.

God, who oft descends to visit men Unseen, and through their habitations walks To mark their doings.

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

A man may be ungrateful, but the human race is not so.

Virtue that wavers is not virtue, but vice revolted from itself, and after a while returning. The actions of just and pious men do not darken in their middle course.

But God himself is truth; in propagating which, as men display a greater integrity and zeal, they approach nearer to the similitude of God, and possess a greater portion of his love.

Education of youth is not a bow for every man to shoot in that counts himself a teacher; but will require sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave to Ulysses.

O execrable son! so to aspire Above his brethren, to himself assuming Authority usurped, from God not given. He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation; but man over men He made not lord; such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free.

Man hath his daily work of body or mind Appointed, which declares his dignity, And the regard of Heav'n on all his ways.

Though we take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet one jewel left; you cannot bereave him of his covetousness.

If we think we regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all regulations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man.

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.

Who can enjoy alone? Or all enjoying what contentment find?

What need a man forestall his date of grief, And run to meet what he would most avoid?.

It is not good for man to be alone. Hitherto all things [in Genesis] that have been named, were approved of God to be very good: loneliness is the first thing which God's eye named not good.

Most men admire Virtue who follow not her lore.

Take heed lest passion sway Thy judgement to do aught, which else free will Would not admit.

In argument with men a woman ever Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause.

For God will deign to visit oft the dwellings of just men -- delighted, and with frequent intercourse -- thither will send his winged messengers on errants of supernal grace.

From the cheerful ways of men / Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair / Presented with a universal blank / Of nature's works to me expunged and razed, / And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought Mosaic; underfoot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth with rich inlay Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone Of costliest emblem: other creature here Beast, bird, insect, or worm durst enter none; Such was their awe of man.

The whole freedom of man consists either in spiritual or civil liberty.

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.

Man hath his daily work of body or mind Appointed.

Our torments also may in length of time Become our Elements.

Accuse not nature: she hath done her part; Do thou but thine.

And God made two great lights, great for their use To man, the greater to have rule by day, The less by night...

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.

Wisest men / Have erred, and by bad women been deceived; / And shall again, pretend they ne'er so wise.

For solitude is sometimes best society, And short retirement urges sweet return

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

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.

Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men

The olive-grove of Academe, / Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird / Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.

Is it just or reasonable, that most voices against the main end of government should enslave the less number that would be free? more just it is, doubtless, if it come to force, that a less number compel a greater to retain, which can be no wrong to them, their liberty, than that a greater number, for the pleasure of their baseness, compel a less most injuriously to be their fellow-slaves. They who seek nothing but their own just liberty, have always right to win it and to keep it, whenever they have power, be the voices never so numerous that oppose it.