“What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,
The labor of an age in pilèd stones,
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?”
– John Milton, The Complete Poetry
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
– John Milton
O welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!
– John Milton, Comus
The childhood shows the man As morning shows the day.
– John Milton
For if such holy song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold, And speckled vanity Will sicken soon and die.
– John Milton
Fairy elves,Whose midnight revels, by a forest side Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon Sits arbitress.
– John Milton
On the tawny sands and shelves Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
– John Milton
In solitude What happiness, who can enjoyalone, Or all enjoying, what contentment find?
– John Milton
For solitude sometimes is best society, And short retirement urges sweet return.
– John Milton
Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.
– John Milton
No date prefixed directs me in the starry rubric set.
– John Milton
The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
– John Milton
The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.
– John Milton
He’s gone, and who knows how may he report Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
– John Milton
So dear I love him that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life.
– John Milton
The rising world of waters dark and deep.
– John Milton
Most men admire Virtue, who follow not her lore.
– John Milton
Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe.
– John Milton
Time, the subtle thief of youth.
– John Milton
Or did the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheek.
– John Milton