Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by John Milton (English Poet)

John Milton (1608–74) was an English poet of radical politics who lived during one of the most volatile times in the history of England. He is best remembered as the author of Lycidas (1637,) Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regained.

Born on Bread Street in London, to an affluent family, Milton studied at Cambridge. He became fluent in Latin, Greek, Italian, and Hebrew, and he committed the entire Bible to memory. In 1638, he left on a 15-month tour to visit Florence, Rome, and Naples and met such important figures as astronomer Galileo Galilei and the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius. His expedition to Europe was interrupted by news of political turmoil in England and the likelihood of a civil war.

Upon his return to England, Milton became a polemicist and wrote prose for the Republican cause. He used the then-new printing press to produce and distribute pamphlets. His political influential expanded, and Milton became chief assistant to Oliver Cromwell, lord protector of the English Commonwealth.

In his later years, Milton was beset by failing eyesight. By 1654, Milton was blind. Many of his poems were dictated to assistants, one of whom was the poet Andrew Marvell.

The English Commonwealth collapsed upon Cromwell’s death in 1658. After the reinstatement of the monarchy in 1660, Milton was imprisoned. Marvell argued that Milton was old and blind and thus posed no threat to Charles II. So, Milton narrowly escaped execution and got liberated.

All Milton’s three major works, Paradise Lost (1667; revised, 1674,) Paradise Regained (1671,) and Samson Agonistes (1671) were completed after he had gone blind. Scholars rate Paradise Lost the defining English epic, and interpret it as a political allegory—the fall of man in Eden echoes the lost paradise of Milton’s much-cherished Republic.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Milton

Sweet bird, that shun the noise of folly, most musical, most melancholy!
—John Milton
Topics: Sadness

Govern well thy appetite, lest Sin Surprise thee, and her black attendant Death.
—John Milton
Topics: Appetite, Diet

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.
—John Milton
Topics: Nation, Nations, Nationalism, Nationality

Mutual love, the crown of all our bliss.
—John Milton
Topics: Love

Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny; or no power that is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them.
—John Milton

Luck is the residue of design.
—John Milton
Topics: Fortune, Luck

Fear of change perplexes monarchs.
—John Milton
Topics: Change

God oft descends to visit men, unseen, and through their habitations walks, to mark their doings.
—John Milton

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
Topics: Wickedness, Weakness

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
—John Milton

Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine.
—John Milton
Topics: Wine

Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.
—John Milton
Topics: Peace

The power of Kings and Magistrates is nothing else, but what is only derivative, transferrd and committed to them in trust from the People, to the Common good of them all, in whom the power yet remaines fundamentally, and cannot be takn from them, without a violation of thir natural birthright.
—John Milton

Tell me. said a heathen philosopher to a Christian, “where is God.”—“First tell me,” said the other, “where he is not.”
—John Milton

Where liberty dwells, there is my country.
—John Milton
Topics: Liberty

Where shame is, there is also fear.
—John Milton
Topics: Shame

He who reins within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king.
—John Milton
Topics: Discipline, Control, Self-Control

Assuredly we bring not innocence not the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.
—John Milton

The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.
—John Milton

Goodness thinks no ill where no ill seems.
—John Milton
Topics: Goodness

Stars of the morning—dew-drops—which the sun impearls on every leaf and flower.
—John Milton

These false pretexts and varnished colours failing,
Rare in thy guilt how foul must thou appear.
—John Milton
Topics: Guilt

Boast not of what thou would’st have done, but do.
—John Milton
Topics: Inaction, Procrastination, Getting Going

A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.
—John Milton
Topics: Books, Reading

Deep versed in books and shallow in himself.
—John Milton

The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love Him, and to imitate Him, as we may the nearest, by possessing our souls of true virtue.
—John Milton
Topics: Knowledge, Learning

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
Topics: Life

Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source of human offspring, sole propriety in Paradise of all things common else. By thee adulterous lust was driven from men among the bestial herds to range; by thee founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure, relations dear, and all the charities of father, son, and brother first were known.
—John Milton
Topics: Marriage

In those vernal seasons of the year when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.
—John Milton
Topics: Country, Nature

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